


A Perfect Storm

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Soul Eater
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Blow Jobs, Broken Bones, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Hallucinations, Hand Jobs, Hospitals, Insomnia, Living Together, M/M, Madness, Partnership, Suicidal Thoughts, Tsunderes, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:52:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 71,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9444071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "He’s going to be the greatest. He is Gokudera Hayato, meister-in-training, and he’s going to become the best meister the Academy has ever seen." Gokudera arrives at the DWMA with a very clear idea of his path to success and finds it far harder to follow than he expected.





	1. Adjacent

Gokudera is looking forward to starting classes at the DWMA.

He’s known for years he would be coming to the Academy. He’s not a weapon, doesn’t have the automatic admission that comes with the weapon form that a few of his childhood friends carried like a promise of greatness in their blood; but that’s okay, he tells himself, that just makes his determination to join the ranks of weapons and meisters the more remarkable. His sister spent some time at the Academy, years ago when Gokudera was too young to understand the full weight and honor that goes with that; but she made her partner a Death Weapon and came home, declaring that her devotion to her one true love was too great to allow her to even consider taking on another partner.

Gokudera has always thought that to be a stupid reason -- love is a distraction at best and a downright weakness at worst, something to be fought against rather than indulged in -- but it’s very like Bianchi to capitulate to the demands of her heart, and he doesn’t care anyway. Her resignation has left the stage clear for him to excel, for him to finally shake off the burden that came with the illegitimate heritage he carries in the eyes of his father’s house, and if Bianchi doesn’t care to become a great meister Gokudera is happy to take up the goal for himself.

He’s going to be the greatest. He’s made up his mind on that point before he even steps through the front doors of the Academy, before he’s yet made it up the whole long flight of stairs that lead to the front courtyard. He’s Gokudera Hayato, meister-in-training, and he’s going to become the best student the Academy has ever seen. It doesn’t matter how much effort it takes, doesn’t matter how hard the path is; he’ll make a Death Weapon, he’ll make more, dozens, he’ll have as many weapons who look to him as their partner as Lord Death himself.

It doesn’t matter who his first partner is, Gokudera decides as he makes his way through the echoing hallways of the school, past the older students in a variety of uniforms and the sprinkling of first-years like himself in plain, dark clothes with just the label of “Weapon” or “Meister” pinned just below their shoulder. All he has to do is find one with potential, someone he can work with, and he’ll be set. Maybe he can find a bomb-type weapon, he thinks as he pulls open the door to the classroom, or perhaps a bow and arrow; he’s never studied archery, but he likes the idea of it, can imagine the draw of effort flexing in his shoulder to set loose a devastating attack at enough of a distance that he’s only caught by the wind of the destruction. He’s open-minded, he tells himself as he considers the room with more of a scowl than a smile; he just needs to find out what the weapon students turn into, just needs to decide who he wants to partner with, and then he can begin the process of making himself into the success he knows he can be, if he only gets a chance.

There’s not many students in the room yet. Class has yet to start officially; Gokudera is a few minutes early, and if there are other students they have yet to find their way to the start of class. Gokudera dismisses them out-of-hand; he’s not going to have success with a weapon who’s not willing to put in the effort to find class on time the first day. That leaves just the few in the room already: a pair of girls in the corner, eyes wide and voices soft, a boy with a shock of horrendous hair and the ugliest girl Gokudera has ever seen at his side, a redhead standing in the corner with his arms folded protectively over his chest, and two boys by the doorway, one tall and lanky and the other short and smaller, clearly awaiting a growth spurt to push him properly towards his full height.

Gokudera is left to frown at his options, considering the tags pinned to each student’s chest with ruthless efficiency. The girls are out immediately; he doesn’t want to work with a girl, not when they’re only going to be constantly giggling and screaming and tripping over themselves. The boy with the unfortunate hair seems to have stuck himself to the hip of the girl with him; he’s unlikely to be persuaded into leaving, judging from the shining affection he’s gazing up at her. The one in the corner is a possibility; but his arms are blocking his tag, Gokudera can’t tell whether he’s a meister or a weapon, and he’d be all but offering himself as a partner if he goes and asks. That just leaves--

“Hi!” The voice is cheerful, bright with the kind of overbearing extraversion that always sets Gokudera’s teeth on edge right off the bat. Gokudera turns his head, feeling his forehead crease on irritation as he looks at the pair that have just come over to strike up a conversation. It’s the tall one speaking, with the dark mess of flyaway hair that looks like it has only a passing acquaintance with gravity and none at all with combs; he’s grinning all over his face as if Gokudera has offered him the least indication of friendship, as if they’re best friends already. Gokudera decides he loathes him instantly. “Are you a meister?”

Gokudera raises one eyebrow as high as it will go. “No,” he says. “I’m just wearing the tag for one.”

The other boy blinks, his expression falling into blank surprise for a moment. “Really?”

“ _No_ ,” Gokudera snaps. “ _Obviously_ I’m a meister. Are you some kind of idiot?”

The other’s laugh is as irritatingly cheerful as his smile. “Ha, maybe,” he says, and then he’s holding his hand out, offering a handshake before Gokudera has a chance to decide what he wants to do with it. “I’m Yamamoto Takeshi!”

Gokudera considers ignoring the obvious response. The idea of throwing back rudeness in the face of this strange boy’s overwhelming friendliness is more than a little tempting; it’d be good for him, Gokudera’s inner monologue insists, better for him to get some of that unbearable cheer crushed out of him before he has a chance to get into real trouble with it. But there’s only a few people in the room, and Gokudera can feel the weight of his position as a unpartnered meister like a burden on his shoulders, and finally he growls and reaches to take the other’s hand with as much ill grace as he can muster.

“Gokudera Hayato,” he growls.

“Ha, cool,” Yamamoto tells him, like there’s anything remarkable about Gokudera’s name, and smiles wide enough to pull dimples at the corners of his mouth. Gokudera has the vague impression that the other is only getting more cheerful in reaction to Gokudera’s coldness, which is impressive since Gokudera hadn’t thought it was possible for one human being to survive any more happiness than Yamamoto already has in him. “This is my friend Tsuna!”

The shorter boy standing at Yamamoto’s elbow flinches at this introduction, like he had been hoping to slip past wholly unnoticed. His hair is paler than Yamamoto’s but just as fluffy; he offers an awkward wave rather than the more aggressive handshake, struggling through a smile that looks more like a grimace of stress than true happiness. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Gokudera says. He’s not paying much attention to Tsuna’s face; his focus is on the front of the other’s uniform, where there’s no trace of the badges everyone else in the room is wearing. “What are you?”

Tsuna blinks, forehead creasing in confusion. “I’m a student?”

Gokudera growls, the sound low enough to cut past the bright of Yamamoto’s accompanying laugh; Tsuna cringes and very nearly takes a step back from the other boy in front of him. “Don’t be stupid, _obviously_ you’re a student. I mean this.” Gokudera grabs at the tag on the front of his own uniform to gesture at the weight of it. “Meister.” He looks to Yamamoto blinking comfortably down at him, sparing barely a glance for the tag pinned to the front of the other’s shirt before he’s grimacing and looking away again. “Weapon.” He makes his gesture at the other short and peremptory. He’d rather partner with the terrified boy in the corner than with the egregiously cheerful idiot in front of him. “Which one are you?”

“Which one?” Tsuna repeats. Gokudera wonders briefly if the two in front of him are true idiots, if maybe he should be gentle and reassuring and extricate himself from the interaction as rapidly as possible. Tsuna looks down at his shirt and blinks like he’s only just noticing the absence of the tag everyone else is wearing. “Oh!” He lifts a hand to press against his chest, weighting his fingers against the fabric as if to call up the memory of the absent tag by touch. “They said I didn’t need one.”

Gokudera scowls at him. “That’s bullshit. What do you mean, didn’t need one? Are you already assigned to a partner or something?”

Tsuna shakes his head, his eyes wide and shining innocence. “No, not at all. I need to find a partner just like everyone else.”

Gokudera presses his teeth together and tightens his jaw until he can feel the pressure aching all the way up in his temples like a headache. These two really _are_ idiots. “What _kind_ of a partner? Meister or weapon?”

“It doesn’t matter.” That’s Yamamoto again, jumping in to offer a response in place of his cringing friend at his side. “They said Tsuna could be either one!” Yamamoto looks to Tsuna next to him, still smiling that dopey smile all over his face; when he reaches out to pat the other’s shoulder Tsuna wobbles like he’s considering outright collapse where he stands. “It’s pretty cool to be friends with someone like that!”

Gokudera blinks. “He’s both?” he says, and then he’s looking back to the boy cringing in front of him, staring at him as his eyes go wide on possibility. Yamamoto is still talking, saying something about what a good group they make with two possible meisters and two weapons just between the three of them, but Gokudera isn’t listening to what the other is saying; he’s staring at Tsuna’s wide eyes and nervous-slouched shoulders, gazing at the reality of the present and seeing only the possibility of the future.

He’s sure that he’s found the partner to bring him the success he wants.


	2. Cheer

Everything goes well for the first week.

Gokudera has a plan now, one he pursues with complete focus. It’s true that the partnerships aren’t entirely locked down yet, and it’s also true that Yamamoto refuses to take the hint and keeps laughing about them being a trio in complete disregard for the fact that Gokudera refuses to wield his baseball bat weapon form and that he ends up cycling through the other meisters in the class rather than actually working with either Tsuna or Gokudera with any regularity. But Gokudera tries to keep his attention on the practice drills instead of on Yamamoto, instead approaching every exercise session as an opportunity to show off the innate skill he knows he must have.

Tsuna’s weapon form isn’t ideal for him; the other transforms into a pair of gloves that sometimes throw off sparks, if Gokudera hits something just right, and otherwise do nothing at all. They require Gokudera to get in closer than he wants to in combat, demand that he step right inside the attack range of his opponent without any sure way to defend himself; but Gokudera is sure he’ll get over that, is sure he can figure out a way to work around that inconvenience. More important is the way the class went silent and impressed when the instructor Timoteo announced that Tsuna was a meister and a weapon both, and the way he always considers Tsuna from the front of the room like he’s planning a future for him. Gokudera always gets a shiver when he sees that, as if his life is being shaped for him from his partnership with someone destined for greatness, and he always puts up far better of a fight when he feel like that.

Gokudera shows up to class the last day of the week tired. He’s been putting in extra hours of study at home, reading over stories of famous meisters and their weapons and working through the textbook for his meister course with a dogged determination that has taken him weeks ahead of where they are meant to be in lecture itself. This has the side-effect of leaving him painfully bored in class, with nothing to focus on but the material he’s already learned well enough to recite it without a script in front of him; but it’s hard to sleep in the unfamiliar apartment he’s been temporarily assigned to, and if he’s staying awake he might as well be productive with his time. He hasn’t yet demonstrated his great potential as a meister to Timoteo or anyone else at the Academy; he feels certain the opportunity will arrive soon, however, and he has no intention of letting it slip past.

He’s thinking about that when he comes in the door of the practice room with his head ducked down and his attention caught in his own thoughts instead of on his surroundings. He’s inside the room just before the bell rings, his timing perfectly calibrated to make his arrival as precise as possible; but instead of the usual hum of chatter from the other students there’s just silence, the room so perfectly quiet Gokudera’s head comes up on the sudden concern that he might have gone into the wrong class. Surely his raucous classmates could never be so quiet in the minutes before lecture begins; but they are, the handful of other boys and girls are arranged in silent attention around the room. They’re looking forward at Timoteo, or most of them are; Yamamoto turned as Gokudera came in, his attention pulled to distraction more immediately than anyone else’s, and he’s smiling now, lifting a hand to press a finger to his lips as if Gokudera needs to be told to be quiet and gesturing the other over from the door. Gokudera scowls at him, fixing Yamamoto with the most vicious glare he can muster, but he comes over anyway to join the other where he’s standing with Tsuna just off center of the main walkway through the room.

“Baseball idiot,” he hisses as he steps in close to bite the words off into Yamamoto’s smiling face. “I can tell to be quiet without your help, do you think I’m as much of an idiot as you?”

“No,” Yamamoto says in that light, easy tone that sheds aggression like a duck’s back sheds water. “I’m glad you made it, they said we’ll--”

“Yamamoto-kun,” Timoteo says from the front of the room. “Gokudera-kun. Please save your discussion for after class.” Gokudera hisses, incoherent frustration pulling itself free of his lips, but Timoteo isn’t waiting for his response; he’s looking back out at the rest of the group, gazing over them with the gentle smile at the corner of his mouth that always makes him look more paternal than strict. “I have some exciting news for one of you.”

Gokudera’s breath catches. He had thought it too early for him to make an impression in class, thought he would need at least a month for his true abilities to come clear; but he should have had more faith in the Academy, of course they must know how to recognize potential from amid the myriad contenders for responsibility. Yamamoto shifts at his shoulder, turns his head to glance sideways at Gokudera, but Gokudera doesn’t look at him; his attention is all for the front of the class and whatever it is Timoteo is going to announce.

“Death Weapon Reborn is interested in working with one of you as a meister.” Gokudera’s heart skids; he had intended to make his mark with Tsuna as his weapon partner, but a Death Weapon offers just as much potential, maybe more. “He’s been reviewing the records from this class and thinks he could offer individual tutoring to one student in particular.” Gokudera’s skin prickles; he can hardly believe what he’s hearing, can hardly believe his good fortune. How much must he stand out from the rest, to be so specifically recognized?

“This is quite an honor for our class,” Timoteo tells them all. “Sawada Tsunayoshi, could you please come up to the front of the room?”

It takes Gokudera a moment to realize what’s going on. It takes Tsuna a moment longer; he’s still staring blankly at Timoteo when Gokudera turns his head to look at him, his expression totally blank of understanding even when the rest of the class starts to turn to stare at him. He blinks at Timoteo, his eyes wide and absent any comprehension; and then Yamamoto reaches out to touch his shoulder, and he startles into a gasp of “ _Me?_ ” with as much shock as if he had temporarily forgotten his own name.

“Sounds like it,” Yamamoto says, his tone chipper with unabashed happiness. Of course it is, Gokudera thinks with a kind of vague, distant logic humming in his head; Yamamoto’s a weapon, he knew it wasn’t him right from the start, there’s none of the selfish disappointment that has so seized Gokudera’s thoughts. “Congratulations, Tsuna!”

“Oh,” Tsuna says, and blinks hard like he’s trying to clear his vision. “ _Oh_.”

“Congratulations,” comes another voice, and Gokudera turns his head to see Timoteo approaching, his hands clasped in front of him and his face warm with fatherly beneficence. “Reborn has been asking after you since he heard of your potential as a dual weapon and meister. He thinks he can make you into something great, Sawada-kun.”

“Oh,” Tsuna says, blinking very hard like he’s trying to remember how to get his vision to work. “He does?”

“He does,” Timoteo beams at him. “And I do too. We’re all looking forward to seeing your progress, Sawada-kun!”

“Ah,” Tsuna says, trying on a smile that is far too tremulous to come even close to sincerity. “Good?”

“What about us?” Yamamoto asks.

Gokudera isn’t watching Yamamoto. He had all but forgotten about the other boy’s existence, with the variety of other things he has before him to hold his attention. It’s startling to hear his voice, more startling to have it framed around a question; when Gokudera looks up at him Yamamoto is watching Timoteo with his head cocked just slightly to the side in that way he does when he’s trying to grasp a new concept. “What about Gokudera and I?”

“Yeah,” Gokudera says, and turns back to Timoteo, his voice catching power and force from the reminder of speech that Yamamoto’s words grant him, his expression tightening into a scowl he can feel dig in hard at his mouth and line a crease between the set of his brows. “What about me? I’m Tsuna’s _partner_.”

Timoteo looks at him, his eyes going wider with the beginnings of gentle confusion. “What about you?” He looks from one of them to the other, from Gokudera’s scowl to Yamamoto’s curiosity, and Gokudera can see the start of the answer he doesn’t want to hear forming itself behind that fatherly smile. “You’ve been working as a trio, haven’t you? You still have a weapon and a meister, you two should be able to keep working together with no difficulty.” He ducks his head to smile conspiratorially up at them. “You wouldn’t want to deprive your friend of this opportunity, would you?”

He makes the answer to the question seem obvious, as if the possibility of giving anything but a negative is completely incomprehensible. Gokudera wants to argue, is turning over the possibility of rejecting this assumption in his head -- surely Tsuna will do better as a weapon, surely _he_ can be the best meister for the other, of course they’ll make better partners than Tsuna will with some Death Weapon he’s never met -- but at his side Yamamoto burbles a laugh, and Gokudera can hear the surrender in the sound before he has a chance to turn his head and glare Yamamoto into silence.

“Ha, I guess so!” Yamamoto turns his head to look at Gokudera, his expression breaking into a smile as his whole face glows with irritating happiness. “Guess we’re partners after all, Gokudera!”

Gokudera doesn’t know what to say in response to that except to offer a hiss of irritation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t so much as flicker a shadow over Yamamoto’s cheer.


	3. Glimpse

“That was a really cool class!” Yamamoto’s voice is bright at Gokudera’s elbow, the sound of his words pattering as easily as the pace of his footsteps against the sidewalk. “Do you think we’ll be allowed to try a mission of our own sometime soon?”

“Go _away_ ,” Gokudera growls without looking up to see the dumb smile he’s sure Yamamoto is offering him. “Why are you _following_ me.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is irritatingly unfazed. “I’m just going home. This is the fastest way, isn’t it?”

“Fine,” Gokudera says without looking up from his fixed glare at the pavement in front of him. “Then you go this way and I’ll go the long way back.”

“Huh?” Yamamoto sounds sincerely confused, like he’s having trouble making sense of what Gokudera is confident are reasonably small words. “But we’re going to the same place!”

Gokudera hisses incoherently at the reminder. “Shut _up_ ,” he snaps. “I don’t want to think about that any more than I have to.”

“It’s not that bad,” Yamamoto soothes. “I’m a good roommate, really!”

“I don’t care,” Gokudera informs him. “I don’t want to live with you.”

“Aww,” Yamamoto laughs without any indication of dampened spirits. “But we’ll do better if we get to know each other. They say the best partners are the ones who spend the most time together, you know!”

“I _know_ ,” Gokudera hisses. “I don’t need an idiot like you to tell me that, _everyone_ knows that.”

“And you want to be the best,” Yamamoto says with easy speed. “Don’t you?”

Gokudera’s eyes go wide, his head comes up. Yamamoto is watching him, his eyes shining and his mouth soft; he looks like all his focus is fixed to the other, as if he has nothing else in the whole of the world he’d rather look at. It’s disconcerting to be considered with such focus; Gokudera can feel his shoulders hunch under the sheer force of the other’s attention.

“I do,” he says, biting the words off with as much aggression as he can fit against the brief syllables. “I _am_ going to be the best. I’ll beat every other meister, I don’t care who they are.”

“You need a weapon,” Yamamoto informs him without so much as a flicker in his smile. “You can’t become a great meister without a weapon partner, after all!”

“I don’t want to partner with _you_ ,” Gokudera tells him. “I need a _good_ weapon, not a stupid baseball bat.”

“Every other weapon in our class has a meister already,” Yamamoto says. It’s like he’s not even hearing Gokudera’s insults, like they’re sliding right off him like water off oiled cloth; it’s infuriating, as if only every other of Gokudera’s words is being heard. “You’d have to wait for the next class to find another partner. Besides, shouldn’t a good meister be able to work with any kind of weapon?”

“I,” Gokudera starts, frustration spilling heat off his tongue; and then he’s left to gape soundlessly at Yamamoto, struggling for words when none will come. Finally he closes his mouth and fixes the other with a glare instead. “Shut _up_ , baseball idiot.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is maddeningly bright, cheerful as if Gokudera’s words are friendship rather than aggression, as if the other had smiled at him instead of scowled. “I think you can do it,” he says, for all the world as if Gokudera needs reassurance, as if he somehow doubts his own ability to wield the other rather than questions Yamamoto’s fundamental value and worth as the weapon he ostensibly is. “I think we look pretty cool together as partners.”

“We are not partners,” Gokudera informs him. He looks away from the wide-eyed cheer of Yamamoto’s gaze on him, and from the curving happiness so easy at the other’s mouth, and when he moves it’s to stride away down the sidewalk again, taking the lead without giving Yamamoto any warning at all to come with him. It’s childishly satisfying to have a moment to himself while Yamamoto realizes he’s moving again, but there’s none of the frustration or anger that Gokudera half-wishes to see in the other’s reaction; there’s just the burble of that damn laugh from behind him and the scuff of sneakers dragging at the sidewalk as Yamamoto drops into a jog to catch him up. Gokudera can’t take the lead without breaking into a run himself, and the idea of being chased through the streets by his weapon partner is too absurd for him to bear, so he lets Yamamoto catch up to him without any further resistance other than letting his frown deepen so hard he can feel it in all the lines of his face. It’s _definitely_ not because he’s not sure he can actually outpace the other’s alarmingly easy athleticism, surely.

“That’s silly,” Yamamoto informs him as he falls back into pace just at Gokudera’s elbow. He walks too close; Gokudera can feel the other’s sleeve brushing against his with every step forward they take, can see the angle of his shadow across the street overlapping to blend with the other’s. “We’re working and living together, what would we be except partners?”

“You’re a _tool_ ,” Gokudera bites off. “We’re not partners, and we’re not friends. You’re a weapon, and I need a weapon--” _for now_ “--so I’m going to work with you until I can find someone better.” He glances up through the fall of his hair to fix Yamamoto with a scowl. “That clear enough for you, idiot?”

Yamamoto looks at Gokudera for a long moment. The sunlight is catching against his hair to turn the dark of it soft and shadowed; the unbrushed tangle makes a halo around his head, as if the lack of tidiness is a fashion choice and not a consequence of the absentmindedness Gokudera is sure it really is. He’s still smiling, just barely; but the curve of his mouth is clinging to his lips now instead of dominating his expression, the shape of it more a suggestion at the corners of his eyes and in the tilt of his head than a full-blown grin all across his face. It makes Gokudera’s skin prickle with discomfort, as if Yamamoto is seeing something more in his expression than what he means to put there, as if he’s reading some insight into Gokudera’s personality and existence that Gokudera isn’t even aware of himself.

“Sure,” Yamamoto says finally, his voice softer than it was, like the cheer in his tone has eased along with the brilliant bright of his smile. He’s still looking at Gokudera. “That still means we’re partners for now, though, right?”

Gokudera isn’t sure what he’s feeling. His skin is prickling with that sense of being _seen_ , of being looked into instead of at; it makes him feel defensive, makes him want to shove Yamamoto back and away and take off running until he’s as far away from the focus of the other’s gaze as he can get, until he’s sure no one will ever see any more of him than what he decides he wants them to see. But there’s something soft at the back of Yamamoto’s voice, the suggestion of tension like the trembling outline of uncertainty on his words, and when Gokudera glares up at the other Yamamoto’s eyes are shadowy too, his lashes dark and heavy with some emotion far greater than what little made it into his voice. Gokudera doesn’t know what he’ll find if he pushes against that -- if there will be tears, or anger, or something completely unexpected opening up underneath him -- but it makes him shy away anyway, makes him hiss resignation and look away rather than continuing his aggressive rejection of the other boy.

“Fine,” he says. “Of course it does. We’re _temporary_ partners.” He puts as much emphasis on the adjective as he can muster, drawling it long to fill the whole weight of the sentence; but Yamamoto’s laugh is bright on cheer, and when he says “So we _are_ partners!” Gokudera has the creeping suspicion that he has somehow found himself on completely the wrong side of the argument he wanted to be making in the first place.

Still, when he glances sideways through his hair Yamamoto is smiling again, his face turned up like he’s appreciating the glow of the sunlight on his skin, and whatever shadow Gokudera thought he saw in the other’s eyes is gone as completely as if it was never there at all. Gokudera looks away again, fixing his gaze on the street in front of him rather than on his temporary partner next to him, and by the time they’ve made it over the gap of blocks to their shared apartment he’s nearly convinced himself he imagined whatever it was he glimpsed in the other’s face.

It’s more comfortable to believe that than that there might be layers to Yamamoto Takeshi he hasn’t seen yet.


	4. Swing

“It’s so cool that we get to work together again!” Yamamoto chirps, the glow of his smile more than audible in the dip and lilt of his voice. “It’s just like we’re a trio again!”

“Ha, yeah.” Tsuna’s voice is giving him away as much as Yamamoto’s; he sounds painfully nervous, the strain in his throat dragging itself around his forced laugh until it sounds like a struggle just to get the sound past his lips. “Except I’m supposed to be a meister now instead of a weapon, I guess.”

“And there’s _four_ of us here,” Gokudera hisses, cutting his gaze sideways to glare barely-restrained fury at Yamamoto. “Can’t you even _count_ right, baseball idiot?”

“Haha, of course I can!” Yamamoto says, tipping back to beam at Gokudera without the least indication of displeasure in his expression. It’s infuriating to be so constantly stymied by the other’s cheer even in the face of the most vicious irritation Gokudera can muster; he can’t figure out if Yamamoto is a genius to offer so precisely the right thing to piss him off or just too much of an idiot to even notice Gokudera’s unsubtle signals of dislike and frustration. He considers the first option sometimes, late at night when he’s lying awake in their shared bedroom listening to the too-even sound of the other boy breathing through the gentle weight of dreams in his bed on the other side of the space; but it always makes him too uncomfortable to consider very long, and it never makes it any easier to sleep in any case. Besides, Gokudera’s never met anyone _that_ good at acting; far more likely that Yamamoto really is as much of an optimism-blinded idiot as he appears to be at first glance. Better, too, to count on his incompetence instead of on some well-hidden brilliance; Gokudera’s far less likely to be disappointed by reality that way.

“It’s not like Reborn really counts anyway,” Tsuna says. Gokudera would be irked with the other’s choice of sides to take in this particular argument if Tsuna didn’t sound so weighted down with unhappiness about the statement; Gokudera isn’t completely sure the other has even really noticed he and Yamamoto’s conversation for how abstracted by his own stress he appears to be. “He’s more pulling me on a leash than acting as a partner.”

“I can hear you,” Reborn calls back from the lead he’s been maintaining in front of them. He doesn’t even turn his head but his voice still cuts clear through the falling dark of twilight around them. “And that’s not a half-bad idea.”

Tsuna groans, a tiny, desperate sound of surrender. “See?” he says, but it’s softer than what went before, a murmur under his breath like he’s talking more to the universe at large than for the advantage of the two alongside him.

“Seems like pretty rough training!” Yamamoto says, sounding far more cheerful at the prospect than anyone has any right to. “Sorry you got the hard part of it.” He looks over the top of Tsuna’s head, the bright of his eyes focusing on Gokudera on the other boy’s far side as his smile goes wider. “Aren’t you glad we ended up partners after all, Gokudera?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Gokudera tells him, and turns away so he doesn’t have to watch the insufferable happiness all over Yamamoto’s face not so much as waver at his latest attempt to destroy some measure of the other’s cheerful focus. He can feel the other’s gaze lingering on him like a touch, as if Yamamoto has reached out to sling a friendly arm around his shoulders rather than just continued to gaze at Gokudera across the sidewalk from him, but at least if he keeps his gaze forward he doesn’t have to actually see it himself.

He has more important things to think about anyway, he tells himself firmly. It’s all well and good for his idiot weapon to laugh and chatter without a thought in his silly head; but Gokudera’s a meister, and that comes with a certain responsibility weighting on his shoulders. He speeds his stride, taking three steps for every two of Yamamoto’s ridiculously long ones, and by the time they round the next corner he’s placed himself halfway between the other two boys and Reborn striding down the path in front of them.

The night is very quiet around them. There’s a low murmur in the main part of the city, even late at night; Gokudera’s familiar with it, can hear it like a lullaby through the long hours he spends waiting for sleep that only rarely comes to his urging. Out here the silence is oppressive; whatever comfort peace may offer in the main city, here it carries a tangible force, as if the falling shadows of night are bearing down against the four of them and trying to crush them to the ground through sheer force of will. It makes Gokudera’s skin prickle, draws his mouth down harder on the frown he’s already mustered, and as Reborn pauses at the edge of the last main street through the city Gokudera draws in closer to him, the stress weighting across his shoulders demanding voice in the form of: “How much farther do we have to go?” with more edge on his words than he had entirely intended to give them. “I thought this was supposed to be an easy practice fight.”

Reborn tips his head down to stare at Gokudera. Under the brim of his hat his eyes are like obsidian, flecks of dark in his expression that give no hint at all as to his reaction to the other’s words. Gokudera’s skin prickles again, a sense of self-consciousness forcing itself into hunched shoulders and clenched fists, but Reborn barely spares him a glance before he’s looking away down the street again and moving forward with that steady, certain stride once more.

“It is easy,” he says, his tone as even as the pace of his footsteps. He sounds utterly sure of himself, as if he intends to finish the enemy without so much as ruffling the crisp lines of the suit he’s wearing. As a weapon, maybe he does. “Objectively, that is. For a bunch of losers like you, you might as well view this as a fight for your lives.”

Gokudera’s shoulders go back, his jaw sets on irritation. “ _Losers_ ,” he repeats, the word dragging into fury on the back of his tongue. “I’m not a _loser_. Just because I got partnered with an incompetent weapon instead of--”

“Yamamoto Takeshi’s not incompetent,” Reborn says, cutting Gokudera off without so much as hesitating over interrupting the flow of the other’s speech. “I would have requested to work with him, if he were a meister and not a weapon.” He’s still speaking levelly, without any more inflection on the words than if he were reading from a history text. “He may have the most natural skill of anyone in the Academy right now.”

“ _What_ ,” Gokudera hisses, feeling his words drag inside his chest like a physical symptom of his wounded pride. “ _Him_? _I’m_ the one who’s going to be a professional, he’s just some stupid baseball bat. He doesn’t even have a good weapon form.”

Reborn looks at him again, a quick flash of dark eyes before he turns away, dismissal clear in his reaction. “Yeah,” he says, decisively, like it’s the end of the conversation. “He definitely deserves a better meister than you.”

Gokudera hisses incoherent frustration. “Listen, old man, I--”

“Hey,” another voice cuts in, bright and cheery like sunshine blinding and sharp against night-dark vision. Yamamoto’s jogging up from behind them when Gokudera turns to glare at him, his attention fixed on something farther down the street as he lifts a hand to point. “Is that them?”

Gokudera’s head whips around, his whole focus snapping to sudden, crystalline clarity as he follows the gesture of Yamamoto’s hand. It’s hard to see in the shadows of falling night, he has to squint to make the distance resolve into anything but hazy dark; but then there’s movement, the flicker of something shifting with a strange, loping gait, and all Gokudera’s body goes hot with a surge of anticipatory adrenaline.

“That’s it,” he says. “Isn’t it?”

“Looks like it,” Reborn says without any trace of concern in his voice. He’s watching the street when Gokudera looks up at him, his gaze fixed consideringly on the shape in the distance. “We should get ready. Tsuna!”

“Get ready,” Gokudera repeats. “And just wait for it to come to us?” His heart is racing, his whole body trembling with anxious need to move, to act, to fight and win and triumph and prove his own worth, to overthrow the casual dismissal of Reborn’s voice over those words. There’s a touch at his shoulder, the weight of Yamamoto’s hand brushing his sleeve as the other reaches out to offer comfort, but Gokudera shrugs the contact off without looking, feeling his whole self knot into a tight fist of fury just inside the space of his ribs. “Fuck _that_.” He throws out his arm towards Yamamoto next to him, offering his open palm before he takes the time to look back and glare at the other boy. “Come on, Yamamoto, let’s go.”

Yamamoto looks at him for a moment. Gokudera’s jaw is set, his heart is racing; if Yamamoto balks he thinks he’s ready to go fight the Kishin egg they’re meant to be hunting with his bare fists just to make his point. But then Yamamoto’s lashes dip, and Yamamoto’s mouth curves at the corner, and he says “Okay, Gokudera,” as his body starts to glow with white-blue light. Gokudera keeps glaring at him, watches the light swell to envelop the whole of the other’s body as Yamamoto shuts his eyes as if in surrender; and then the glow coalesces, the color falling in on itself to a new, smaller form, and the handle of a baseball bat smacks solidly against Gokudera’s palm in the moment before he tightens his fingers around it.

“Maybe you can help with the clean-up,” Gokudera says to Reborn without looking at the Death Weapon, and he’s moving, striding forward down the street with Yamamoto in one hand and his other clenched tight at his side.

 _It’s okay to take it slow_ , Yamamoto’s voice murmurs from the back of Gokudera’s thoughts. _It’s not going to hurt anyone in the next few minutes, right?_

“Shut up,” Gokudera says out loud, because it feels better to bite the words off against his teeth when he can hear them, and because the uncanny telepathy of wielding a weapon always makes him more uncomfortable than he quite wants to admit. “I’m tired of waiting around, I want to get this over with so I can go home and get dinner.”

 _Okay_ , Yamamoto says, not even offering the resistance Gokudera half-hoped for just for the sake of having something to protest. _How do you want to take the first swing? Should we try for a sneak attack or just go in all at once?_

“It doesn’t matter,” Gokudera snaps. “I’ll be doing all the work anyway. All you have to do is shut up and move where I swing you.” He hefts the solid weight of the bat in his hand up towards his shoulder, reaches out to close his second hand over the handle just above the first. “Now be quiet and let me focus.”

 _Sure_ , Yamamoto says with more of that irritating non-reaction to Gokudera’s jabs. _But you’re holding me wrong, you should bring the end back towards your shoulder so you can--_

“Shut _up_ ,” Gokudera growls, feeling the words tear raw in the back of his throat as he strides forward over the pavement. “Don’t you listen to _anything_?” And he’s moving, kicking forward into a run before Yamamoto has time to either respond or obey Gokudera’s hissed command. His shoes hit the pavement in a rapidfire pattern, the sound of his steps pattering almost one atop the other with how fast he’s moving; and in front of him the shadow is turning, the Kishin egg they‘ve been sent to hunt down is pivoting back to look at them. It seems bigger from up close, stands half again as tall as Gokudera initially thought it did; but that doesn’t make a difference, it’s not important, Gokudera is taking a breath to fill his lungs with air and shouting, “Fuck _you_ ” in time with the forward swing of the bat in his hands. He commits to the motion, lets the whole forward force of his sprint follow through the arc of the weapon through the air; and the Kishin egg takes a step back, just by a few inches, and the end of the bat whiffs through unresisting air instead of landing the full-strength blow Gokudera was braced for. His forward momentum carries him too far instead, sends him stumbling across the width of the street and leaves his back turned to the enemy, but for a moment he’s too busy catching himself from falling flat on his face to worry about the way the position leaves him completely exposed to the attacker behind him.

 _You have to get closer than that_ , Yamamoto’s voice is thrumming in the back of his head, resonant on worry that heats embarrassment through all Gokudera’s veins at once. _You have to step into the swing with baseball, you can’t stand back and swing from too far off the plate._

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Gokudera snaps. “I _know_.” He doesn’t -- he’s never played baseball in his life, never paid any more attention to the occasional game on television than a cursory glance and a resulting bored yawn -- but he doesn’t need Yamamoto Takeshi to lecture him on what he did wrong when he can see perfectly well what the problem is. He stumbles back into balance, pivots hard on one foot to turn back to the Kishin egg behind him, and when he closes his grip tight around the handle of the bat in his hands his jaw sets as well, bracing into aggression so all-encompassing he can’t even tell if Yamamoto is still speaking or not. It doesn’t matter; Gokudera doesn’t need the distraction anyway, and it’s not like anything the other has to say will be of any use. All he has to do is step in closer, closer than he’s comfortable, close enough that all his instincts are screaming at him to move back, to shift out of range, to get himself back to safety, until it’s only his tight-gritted teeth that hold him where he is within the range of the Kishin egg’s attack.

The form is darker from this close up, like a segment of the night broken off and given form of its own against the backdrop of the city street; but it’s easy to aim for, at least, and as Gokudera raises the bat in his hands over his shoulder the Kishin egg seems to be waiting for him, rocking back over its heels like some looming giant but not making any move to flee. Gokudera’s feet hit the ground, his legs plant into the steady force of stability, he lifts the bat to move into a smooth forward swing; and the Kishin egg shifts, the shadows forming its body shudder, and Gokudera’s knocked backwards by some impossible force, as if the creature in front of him has reached out to slam an open palm against his chest. The swing of the bat in his hands stutters and stops, his breathing rushes out of him as he fumbles back to balance; but the pressure at his chest isn’t easing, it’s spreading, expanding out over the whole of his ribcage like it’s trying to choke him, as if it’s making an attempt to stall the rush of air in his lungs. Gokudera gasps an inhale, lifts a hand to touch reflexive support against the ache across his skin, and it’s as his fingers hit resistance that he realizes it’s not pressure spreading out into his body: it’s pain, it’s agony, a brilliant surge of hurt from the cluster of shadow-dark needles piercing through his shirt to pin the fabric against the spill of blood from his punctured skin. Gokudera looks down, horror rising to feverish heights as he takes in the swath of dark across his chest, as his body starts up a wail of pain enough to drown out any rationality; his breathing is catching, it’s hard to fill his lungs, and he can’t tell if it’s from that first bruise-deep impact or if one of the needles has sunk farther past the span of his ribs, if he’s gained a punctured lung or worse, if he’s dying and just hasn’t noticed the flutter of his fading heartbeat yet.

His grip on the bat in his hand gives way, the weight slides free to clatter to the ground; except there’s no clatter, there’s a flash of light instead, and then a voice, “Gokudera!” skipping high and anxious on panic as an arm catches at Gokudera’s shoulders, as a steady grip closes at his arm to hold him upright. Gokudera gasps for air, feeling the strain of the effort shudder blinding-bright agony through the whole of his body, and it’s as his consciousness caves to darkness under the force of the hurt that he hears Reborn’s voice, echoing and faint but still as painfully clear as the ache of the needles in his chest.

“Like I said.” Clear, cool, absent any trace of worry or apology or even dark satisfaction; he sounds bored more than anything else, like the words are almost not worth saying. “This fight is too much for a meister without any skill.”

After that, Gokudera is happy to succumb to the relief of unconsciousness, even if only as a brief respite.


	5. Lean

Gokudera wakes in the infirmary.

He opens his eyes to the aggressively sanitary white of a ceiling that speaks to where he is better even than the biting smell of antiseptic in the air and the low murmur of an unfamiliar voice on the other side of the curtain drawn around his bed. His chest aches, throbs with a dull, radiant hurt like it’s trying to match itself to the rhythm of his heartbeat; when he lifts a hand to tentatively touch against the pain he’s met with the soft of a bandage instead of the rough ends of the needles he last felt there. His shirt is gone, probably too tattered and stained to be worth saving, but his jeans are still on, as are his boots when he tries flexing his toes, which says he hasn’t been here for very long or that the assigned nurse doesn’t care particularly about patient comfort. He frowns up at the ceiling, pressing harder against the bandage to test the relative pain of the wound before deciding it’s bearable and bracing at his elbow to push himself to upright.

He may have misjudged, he realizes in the first rush of pain that knocks the breath from his lungs in a helpless gasp and flares his vision out to crimson agony. The bandage might be preventing any further bleeding than what he’s already done, and the relative ease of his breathing says the damage can’t be particularly severe; but the effort of holding himself up flexes across all the muscles of his chest and stomach as well as his shoulders, and the shift itself is enough to seize pain through the whole of Gokudera’s body. It’s only the brace of his elbow that keeps him from falling flat back to the bed at once, and even then he can’t maintain the smooth motion he was aiming for; he ends up collapsing sideways over his arm, throwing a hand out to catch himself at the edge of the table next to him in an attempt to steady his collapse into something more deliberate than the all-out fall it threatens to be. His hand catches at the surface of the table, his palm slides wide over the top of it; there’s a clatter of sound, the _ping_ of metal toppling to the floor and bouncing off the surface, and the voices on the other side of the curtain cut off abruptly.

“He’s awake.” That’s Reborn’s voice, Gokudera can identify it without any struggle at all. The sigh that follows he doesn’t know, can’t place against any of the new faces he’s met since starting at the Academy, and when the speaker offers words they’re of no more help in recognition.

“Too bad.” The creak of a chair shifting, the sound of footsteps scuffing over the floor. “He’d be happier with some more rest.” A hand closes around the edge of the curtain, an arm drags it back without hesitation, and Gokudera is left to lift his head and scowl up into the bored gaze of a complete stranger. He’s wearing a white coat, which argues the point that he’s likely the nurse, or acting as such; but he’s bearing a few days’ worth of stubble as well, and has a cigarette spiraling smoke towards the ceiling, both of which give him more the impression of a sloppy drunk who’s wandered in off the street more than an actual member of the Academy faculty.

“Who the fuck are you?” Gokudera spits by way of greeting.

The stranger raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re even less pleasant awake,” he informs him. “I liked your sister a lot more.”

Gokudera recoils back from the edge of the bed, his reaction too strong to more than flinch at the burst of pain this too-hasty movement elicits. “What the _fuck_ ,” he spits. “How do you know Bianchi?”

“Everyone knows Bianchi,” the stranger says. “She was the best meister in the whole Academy back when she was a student. Not that she didn’t spend her fair share of time here with me--” accompanied with a leer that twists Gokudera’s mouth further into distaste and pushes him farther away over the bed, “--But she decided to pursue her career instead of the whirlwind romance I would have given her!” The man lifts a hand to the cigarette at his lips and pulls it away to gesture vaguely with the lit end. “She must have mentioned the sultry school doctor to you.”

That rules out the possibility of him being a lost drunk, unfortunately. “No,” Gokudera says flatly. “Never.”

The man looks offended. “How could she?” he gasps. “My dear, my sweet Bianchi, my lovely kitten of a girl, after all we went through she--”

“This is Shamal.” That’s Reborn, speaking with that same flat directness he used with Gokudera at the outskirts of town; he has his head ducked down so the brim of his hat casts his face to shadow and Gokudera is left to guess at his expression rather than read it directly. “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of him.”

“No you won’t,” Shamal steps in. “I don’t treat men. This was an exception for your sister’s sake; the next time one of you idiots wants to throw yourself into the line of fire you can deal with the fallout yourself.” He replaces the cigarette at his lips and lifts his hands in clear dismissal. “I’m done with it.”

“Shamal,” Reborn says, his voice level enough to make the word a warning and a question at once.

“Nope,” Shamal says, and he’s turning away to move towards the desk in the corner of the room left visible by the pulled-back curtain. It’s covered in paper, stacks of official-looking documents scattered over with what look like notes on pink paper and a few photographs. Gokudera would bet without seeing them that they’re all of women. “You’re not going to up and die, as if that was ever any real possibility. Get out of here, you’re taking up a bed I could offer to one of your far prettier classmates.”

“Fuck you,” Gokudera snaps. “I don’t want to be stuck in here with a pervert like you anyway.”

Shamal lifts a hand to wave towards the far side of the room without turning. “There’s the door. You can show yourself out.” When he looks back over his shoulder it’s to fix his gaze on Reborn rather than on Gokudera still sitting up against the thin of the mattress under him. “You’re welcome to leave too.”

“I don’t think so,” Reborn says without any trace of apology in his tone. “We still have some things to discuss.” There’s a pause, a heartbeat of hesitation; it’s not until he shifts to look back over his shoulder from under the shadow of his hat that Gokudera feels the prickle of self-consciousness that proves he’s unwanted.

“Fine,” he says, and shoves hard against the mattress to steady himself as still as possible while he swings his legs sideways and over the edge of the bed. “I’m going, fuck.” It’s just as painful to move now as it was before -- maybe worse, now that he knows what’s coming -- but Gokudera grits his teeth and presses his lips tight together to avoid so much as a whimper to indicate the surge of agony that hits him as he moves. His rings are scattered over the floor from when he accidentally swept them off the table; it’s not until he’s reaching to pick them up that he realizes his hands are sticky with some kind of cream, and not until he lifts his hands to look that he sees the puncture wounds across his palms from the other end of the needles he reflexively pressed against in that first surge of pain. The hurt makes Gokudera grimace, when he knows it’s there to notice; he hadn’t felt it over the dull throb of pain across his chest, but once he’s once been made aware of it he can feel the extra surge of discomfort with every shift of his fingers. Collecting the rings is a laborious task, made more difficult by the effort Gokudera has to put into not hissing in pain every time he leans over or closes his fingers on one of the metal loops, but neither Shamal nor Reborn comments on it. They both stay silent, Shamal absorbed in his papers and Reborn watching Gokudera collect himself with stoic patience, until finally Gokudera is dropping the last of his rings into his pocket and reaching to grab at the edge of the table to drag himself to his feet. It hurts worse, to be standing. He doesn’t so much as hiss his exhale.

“Fuck you both,” he says clearly, careful with the words so they don’t shake apart into a sob of pain, and then he turns to make his way to the door with as much speed as the agony in his body will allow him. It’s not much speed, and it’s embarrassingly close to a hobble, if he really thinks about his movement, but at least there’s no commentary from either of the other two, and when he finally pulls the door open it’s with relief so intense it’s nearly enough to overcome the burn of shame at his failure in his veins.

Gokudera was ready for an empty hallway. It’s a long way back to his apartment, and down the endless flight of stairs he can’t even imagine traversing at the present moment; but at least he’ll have the time to collect himself without an audience, he thinks, he can take a moment to lean against the wall outside the infirmary and try to catch his breath back from the blinding pain that’s running through him in time with the beat of his heart. All he has to do is step through the doorway, is come into the hall -- and then the door is open, and there’s a startled inhale from his right, and from the left: “Gokudera!” in a sun-bright tone Gokudera knows far too well to not recognize even for a moment.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna is saying, stepping forward with eyes wide with concern from where he had clearly been sitting on the floor alongside the door waiting for the other. His attention skims over Gokudera from shoulder to hip, spanning out the white of the bandage wrapping over the ache of injury in the other’s skin, and when he reaches a hand out it’s a tentative gesture, half-crossing the distance between them before drawing back in like he’s afraid to make contact. “Are you okay?”

“You’re alright,” comes the other voice from Gokudera’s far side, giving an answer before Gokudera has time to even parse the question. He turns his head in instinctive response, his attention following the clear sound of that voice, and at his elbow Yamamoto is stepping in closer, is reaching out to touch his fingers to the underside of Gokudera’s elbow to urge the other’s arm up towards the span of his shoulders. “I’m glad.”

“Shut up,” Gokudera says, his response coming reflexively along with the flush of embarrassment that burns like a wave all across his cheekbones. “Of course I’m fine, it was just a scratch.”

“Ha,” Yamamoto says, his head ducked down as he tips forward to fit his shoulders under Gokudera’s arm. His voice is softer than usual, his amusement dampened to a single brief sound. “You were bleeding a lot.”

“You really were,” Tsuna says, and he does complete the contact this time, enough to touch his fingers against Gokudera’s arm before his hand falls away again. “We thought maybe you were…” His voice trails off, the syllables of the unvoiced words hanging with as much weight in the air as if he had shouted them instead of left them silent.

“You’re okay,” Yamamoto says, and then he lifts his head from the angle he’s made of himself under Gokudera’s arm to offer the curve of a smile at the other. There’s something unusually soft about his expression, or maybe it’s just the lighting in the hallway that’s turning the usual blinding bright of his smile into something softer, more mellow, a little more bearable to Gokudera’s eyes. “I knew you would be.”

Gokudera stares at him for a moment; then he looks away, ducking his head so his hair falls in front of his face to curtain his expression from the too-close weight of Yamamoto’s gold-hazel gaze. Better to fix his attention on the other’s chest, to scowl himself into attention on the dark mottling across the saturated blue of the t-shirt the other boy is wearing. He’s opening his mouth to say something about it, to offer some appropriately cutting remark about how he can’t leave Yamamoto alone for even a few minutes without the other making a mess of himself; and then Yamamoto shifts fractionally, and the light catches to illuminate the stain to full color, and Gokudera’s words die in his throat as his gaze focuses on the rust-red hue of his own dried blood.

“Come on,” Yamamoto says, his voice still in his usual chipper range as he braces an arm around Gokudera’s waist and takes half the support of the other’s weight over his shoulders. “Let’s head back home, I’m getting hungry!”

“Great,” Gokudera groans. “You’re just going to want sushi again, aren’t you?”

Yamamoto’s laugh is a little brighter, a little more sincere. “Sure!” he says, and turns to move them down the hallway at a pace slow and sedate enough to allow Gokudera to keep breathing past the effort that comes with every forward step he takes. “Sushi sounds good to me. What do you think, Tsuna?”

The conversation flows easily from there, with Gokudera offering token protest and Tsuna demurring while Yamamoto laughs and chatters and talks them all into dinner together back at their apartment. It’s a distraction from the pain that runs through Gokudera with each step, and from the way his arm around Yamamoto’s neck flexes tighter with every few feet in an attempt to keep himself upright. But Yamamoto doesn’t say anything about the increased pressure any more than he complains about the hunch his greater height demands he take to serve as a support for Gokudera, and if he’s not going to say anything about it, Gokudera’s certainly not going to bring it up.

He has enough to deal with without worrying over the problem of Yamamoto Takeshi just at the moment.


	6. Intuitive

Gokudera really, really hates weapon practice.

It’s necessary. He recognizes that, now, can carry the constant proof of exactly how necessary it is in the slow-healing ache across his chest and the array of pinpoint red speckling his skin in the mirror when he unwinds the bandages to consider his reflection in the few seconds before his evening showers. He’s not going to go out on another mission until he’s more certain of himself, and the only way to get better is through a major exertion of effort. It’s not the effort he objects to inherently; he’d be happy to make better use of his otherwise useless evening hours, the ones he usually spends lying awake frowning at the ceiling overhead while sleep refuses to come for him. It’s just that he’d rather study from books, rather compile a wall of notes and bury himself in text for a few days to emerge the incredible meister he knows he has the potential to be, and unfortunately the way to actually improve involves none of that.

“I hate this,” he says aloud, now, speaking loud enough that his voice echoes off the walls of the empty classroom as he tightens his grip on the handle of Yamamoto’s weapon form. “I really fucking hate all of this.”

 _You don’t have to talk out loud_ , Yamamoto offers at the back of his head, with as much cheer as if he heard only the fact of Gokudera speaking rather than listened to any of the actual meaning behind the words. _I can hear what you’re thinking just fine!_

“Fuck,” Gokudera hisses, dragging the hard consonants to viciousness over the back of his tongue. _Yeah, I_ love _having you in my head. Thanks for the reminder._

 _Of course!_ Yamamoto offers with that same insufferable cheer. _It’s easier to talk this way, don’t you think?_

 _No_ , Gokudera thinks as hard as he can. It still isn’t as satisfying as spitting the words into audible sound. _I hate you so much_.

 _We have to practice or we’ll never get better,_ Yamamoto informs him without so much as a flicker in the easy rhythm of his thoughts. _Let’s do our best together, Gokudera!_

Gokudera rolls his eyes. It helps, a little, even if Yamamoto is aggressively ignoring all the signs Gokudera is offering of his own irritation with the circumstances; at least the expression eases some of the strain of discomfort in Gokudera’s chest and undoes the self-conscious awkwardness holding him still where he stands.

“Alright,” he says out loud, the words more for him than for Yamamoto now. He shifts his feet back, taking the widest, steadiest stance he can achieve; it feels good to be braced steady, like he’s locking himself in against the earth under him in preparation for lifting the weight of the baseball bat in his hands over his shoulder. Yamamoto’s weapon form is heavy, solid wood straight through the whole length of the bat; Gokudera can feel the effort of swinging it upright to rest at his shoulder ache against his arms, can feel the pull of strain in muscles unaccustomed to bearing the burden of the weight he’s putting on them. It feels better to have the end of the bat up over his shoulder, steadier with the center of mass located over him instead of out in front of his chest to pull him off balance; Gokudera shifts his feet by an inch, stabilizing his position into a better angle to counter the bat over his shoulder.

“So,” he says, again for the rhythm of the sound in his throat, for the faint echo of it thrown back from the walls to push him forward into the expected action. “Now I just swing, right?” He lifts the bat from his shoulder, flexes his arms to draw it in a clean arc through the air; it feels precarious, like he might be about to throw himself off the balance of his own feet, but he catches it back before he’s carried completely forward by the motion. “Like that.”

Yamamoto’s laugh seems louder in Gokudera’s head. The sound of it makes him flinch, as if he’s drawing back from a burst of summer sunlight painful against winter-dulled eyes. _That’s not bad for your first time!_ He sounds so sincere Gokudera can’t even muster a proper growl of irritation in response; it’s as if Yamamoto really is pleased with the other’s success, even if the implication of his words speaks volumes to the failure that went along with that swing. _You have to keep the bat in closer to your body to keep from falling. Lean back and just kind of…_ He makes a whistling sound in Gokudera’s head; Gokudera can almost imagine the vague hand gesture that goes with it. _Like that!_

“That makes no sense,” Gokudera informs him bluntly. _You’re a terrible teacher. What the hell does that even_ mean _?_

 _It’s easy!_ Yamamoto sounds utterly confident in the accuracy of his statement. Gokudera thinks he might even believe the claim. _Just like they do in baseball games!_

 _I hate baseball_. Gokudera doesn’t bother giving that particular thought voice at his lips; easier to hiss it in the back of his head, where he’s sure Yamamoto can hear it but it’s quiet enough to be left unacknowledged if the other doesn’t want to call it out. He tries another swing, angling his knees in the way he’s seen on those few instances of games on television he’s accidentally watched for a few seconds; this time he just throws himself off balance entirely and goes stumbling forward, nearly falling to the floor before he can save himself.

 _Not like that_ , Yamamoto says in the back of his head, and then, as the weight of the bat in Gokudera’s grip disintegrates and reforms itself into that soft blue light: “I’ll show you,” the suggestion as cheerful as if Gokudera is proving to be a natural with this weapon instead of a complete failure.

“This is dumb,” Gokudera says as he straightens, frowning in an attempt to counteract the flush of embarrassment that’s burning across the whole of his cheekbones. “What kind of a weapon turns into a baseball bat anyway?”

“Dunno,” Yamamoto says without any edge to his tone at all. Gokudera feels a little like he’s trying to pick a fight with a padded wall. “My kind of weapon, I guess!”

“Fuck,” Gokudera says. He lifts a hand to push roughly through the weight of his hair; it doesn’t make him feel a lot better, but at least it give him a moment for the dark of self-consciousness to ease from his cheeks. “So what the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

“I’ll show you,” Yamamoto smiles, and he’s turning away from Gokudera and padding across the empty room to the corner, where there are a handful of weighted staves stacked one atop the other. They’ve only ever used them for warm-ups before, and then only during class when the instructor insists on it; Gokudera frowns as Yamamoto collects two, ready to protest the needless delay of stretching when they’ve already started in on the actual physical activity. But Yamamoto just comes back across the space without gesturing Gokudera over to follow him, and when he holds out the extra staff it’s with a casual ease that brings Gokudera’s hand out to close around the weight of the pole before he’s thought about it.

“It really is easy,” Yamamoto informs him, and then he’s leaving the second staff to Gokudera’s hold and taking a half-step away, pivoting so his back is to Gokudera instead of his chest. When he swings the pole in his hands up over his shoulder the motion is graceful, fluid with familiarity instead of weighted with the uncertain clumsiness Gokudera is painfully aware characterizes his own movement. Yamamoto takes a half-step forward, his leading foot braces hard at the floor, and he’s shifting his weight in over his knees, tipping himself forward even as his knees bend to drop him back and keep his balance centered over his heels.

“You just set up like this--” as he shifts his hands against the smooth-polished wood under his grip, as his foot slides fractionally over the floor. “Pretend you have a ball coming towards you and--” and he’s moving in a single explosive motion, the staff swinging around and forward like it’s an extension of his body, like the whole smooth flex of legs and shoulders and arms together is all focused on a single central point. It makes Gokudera lose his breath, blows all the air out of his lungs in a rush of involuntary appreciation, and in front of him Yamamoto is following through with thoughtless grace, the staff swinging wide as he lets the force of his momentum carry it free of his second bracing hand at the same time it draws his back foot forward in an unthinking glide of movement. It looks like a single cohesive movement, unpracticed and as easy as breathing; for a brief heartbeat of time Gokudera can’t find air to fill his lungs for the surge of instinctive appreciation that jolts through him, as if he’s hearing a crescendo of music or suddenly confronted with a work of art. Yamamoto’s facing out, towards the door, his whole body open and elegant with the force of the graceful swing he shaped with the staff in his hands; and then he turns his head to smile at Gokudera, and Gokudera rocks back on his heels, his expression collapsing into a reflexive scowl at being caught staring.

“Just like that,” Yamamoto says, letting the end of the staff in his hand drop to rest at the floor. “You see?”

Gokudera blinks. “What?” he blurts. “ _No_ , I don’t see, you just swung the stupid pole once and I’m supposed to understand from that?”

“Yeah,” Yamamoto says. “It’s easy, like--” and he does it again, dropping into the grace of the motion so fast he’s already completed his swing by the time Gokudera realizes what he’s doing. “Easy!”

“ _Not_ easy,” Gokudera snaps. “How are you getting your feet like that?” He tries to imitate the even weight of the other’s balance; it’s hard, he can’t get his feet planted properly with the weight of the staff still in his grip throwing him off balance. “How do you even stand up that way?”

Yamamoto burbles a laugh. “It makes sense once you do it,” he says, which might be true but is patently unhelpful to Gokudera just at the moment. He glances up to glare at Yamamoto, lifting a hand to push his hair back from his face to highlight the expression, and Yamamoto’s smile creases wide across his face as he turns to step in over the distance.

“Like this,” he says, and he’s dropping to kneel at Gokudera’s feet, letting the staff fall to the floor alongside him so he can reach for the other’s feet instead. He braces a hand at the back of Gokudera’s heel and the other over the other’s toe; when he tugs it’s with surprising force, nearly enough to knock Gokudera off his feet. Gokudera wobbles and throws a hand out to catch himself before he falls; his fingers brush soft fabric, his hand weights hard at Yamamoto’s shoulder, and he snatches his touch back so quickly it’s almost enough to throw him off-balance again.

“What the fuck,” he snaps, replacing his touch on the smooth of the pole in his hands to keep his grip occupied instead of accidentally grabbing for the support of Yamamoto’s shoulder in front of him. “What are you _doing_?”

“Moving your feet,” Yamamoto says, and he lifts his head without shifting from his position, turning the full force of his smile up at Gokudera looking down at him. His hair is falling soft across his forehead, tangling in on itself in that way it does that holds to the effect of wind and idle fingers alike. There’s a long strand falling into his eyes; his lashes catch at the dark of it when he blinks. “Lift your foot and I’ll show you.”

Gokudera works through the effort of a swallow, feels the pressure in his throat tightening like it’s trying to choke him before he can work it free. “Fine,” he says, finally, and shifts his weight to his other foot with less grace but at least some measure of efficacy. “Do whatever you want, baseball idiot.” That gets him a laugh bright enough to crinkle at the corners of Yamamoto’s eyes, and the shift of the other’s head ducking down as he focuses on what he’s doing with Gokudera’s feet, and Gokudera is left to work the unwarranted tension in his throat free while Yamamoto directs his feet into whatever he deems to be an appropriate position. It feels awkward when Gokudera rocks his weight forward as Yamamoto directs, strange to move through the motions Yamamoto talks him through; but he doesn’t fall when he swings the staff, this time, and Yamamoto smiles all over his face with happiness at Gokudera’s apparent success while Gokudera himself still feels clumsy and awkward. Gokudera can’t tell if any of the instruction Yamamoto is giving him is actually helpful -- he rather suspects he’ll forget it all the moment they leave the room -- but he doesn’t put voice to his doubts, even after he starts feeling the strain of the unfamiliar position burn against the insides of his arms and along the tops of his thighs.

At least physical exertion gives him an excuse for the warmth humming so bright through all his veins.


	7. Reflexive

_It’ll be alright_ , Yamamoto hums at the back of Gokudera’s thoughts. _We’re a lot better now than we were!_

“I know that,” Gokudera hisses back. _Shut up, we’re supposed to be trying to surprise this thing._

 _Ha, you’re the only one who’s talking out loud!_ Yamamoto’s voice is clear and bright in the back of Gokudera’s head; it’s still strange to have the sound of the other’s words ringing with such precision in Gokudera’s thoughts. They’re close enough to be his own, if the casual cheer of the tone was anything like the sharp-edged weight of expectation that Gokudera carries in the back of his own awareness; as it is it’s just startling every time he hears them, as if he’s received a direct injection of optimism to stutter his thoughts out of focus.

 _Be quiet_ , Gokudera tells Yamamoto, without opening his mouth this time. _I’m doing all the work here, the least you can do is let me pay attention._

 _I can walk myself_ , Yamamoto says, not for the first time. _If you want an extra pair of eyes. I can transform really quick, we’d hardly lose any time at all!_

 _Every second counts,_ Gokudera snaps back, his answer generic enough that there’s nothing for even Yamamoto to push back against. Yamamoto makes a soft sound in the back of his head, something that Gokudera thinks would pass for surrender to a stranger and has a distinct taste of disagreement to him, but he does go quiet, and Gokudera is left to scan their surroundings with more attention than efficacy.

He doesn’t want to admit how uncomfortable he is. The streets of the city he’s used to; he’s learned to navigate his way around the night-shadowed streets and pale stripes of sidewalk until he thinks he could tell his way blindfolded if he had to, until he can walk back to their apartment from the convenience store without ever having to look up from the magazines he buys every couple of days. The city is familiar, the city feels like home as much as the tiny apartment he shares with Yamamoto; Gokudera thinks he’d be ready to take on any opponent within the borders of the tall apartment buildings and the tiny cafes crammed between them. But their target has been hovering at the fringes of the city, barely crossing over the boundary into the main population area for the few attacks it has made, and that means venturing out into the shadows of the woods that bound the bustle and light of the city with the weight of dark unfamiliarity even in the middle of the day. It’s late, now, the sun set some hours ago to leave the Kishin egg they hunt free to roam at will, and Gokudera’s skin has been prickling with anxiety from the first step he took beyond the city limits. It’s a comfort to have the weight of Yamamoto’s weapon form in his hands, though he’s never going to admit that aloud; he likes having the solid force of it dragging at his arms, like a weight to tether him to the reality that seems to shift around him with every gusting rustle of wind through the tree branches. He’s jumping at shadows, flinching to look over his shoulder at every cracking twig, and at least with Yamamoto transformed there’s no one but him to know he’s startling at nothing at all.

 _Do you see anything?_ Yamamoto murmurs in the back of his head. He seems to have taken Gokudera’s complaint to heart, or maybe he’s picking up on the weight of the other’s stress more than Gokudera intended; his voice is soft enough that it would be a whisper if he were in human form, a murmur too soft for Gokudera to hear without leaning in to catch the edges of the consonants against his ear.

 _No_ , Gokudera offers back. _Just shadows. It’s too damn dark to see anything, I don’t understand how we’re supposed to hunt this thing down if it wants to hide out here. It’d be easier if we could come during the day, at least then I could_ see _something._

 _Kishin eggs go into hiding during the day_ , Yamamoto tells him, like Gokudera needs to be reminded. Gokudera rolls his eyes at this statement, glancing down to give the weapon in his hands a flat look while he frames a scathing response in his head; and there’s movement, a shadow flashing into action just at the corner of his eye. He turns his head to track it immediately, his heart skipping on a surge of panic in his chest; and there it is, a vague, dark form standing level with the web of branches overhead, visible more from its movement than from any kind of reflected light to give it shape. In the back of Gokudera’s head Yamamoto hisses an inhale, gasping in startled awareness as he processes the change in their surroundings; but Gokudera is yelling aloud, shouting a startled burst of sound as he stumbles backwards without thinking through the movement at all. His feet catch on the detritus of leaves and twigs under him, his boots scuff heavy through the dirt as he half-falls backwards; and then his heel catches at a rock, his balance gives way at once, and he’s falling before he has any chance to catch himself, toppling to land heavily at the forest floor as the shape in front of him lumbers forward in pursuit. It might have been leery of the Death Weapons who went out to try to pin it down in the city, but it seems the opposite of frightened now; or maybe it’s just that Gokudera seems like easy prey, that he looks like the idiot he feels at the moment with his heart racing in his chest and his feet splayed out in front of him instead of beneath him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he shouts, loud, the sound torn from him on a surge of adrenaline rather than given conscious form, and he cringes back, his arm coming up in instinctive attempt to shield his face as he ducks back and away from the oncoming attack. The movement of the weapon in his hand is completely accidental; it’s a reflexive action, not a conscious one, until Gokudera is more startled than otherwise by the weight dragging at his arm as he lifts Yamamoto up over his head. The bat twists, the weight of it shifting against his hold; and then there’s a jarring force, an impact that runs through the whole of Gokudera’s arm to smack him hard against the ground, and in the back of his head a hiss sharp and clear with agony too clear to be given words.

“Yamamoto,” Gokudera says without thinking, his words pulling free from his throat even before he’s managed to turn his head to look up at what’s happening over him. The Kishin egg is looming over him, the weight of its shadow threatening to pin him flat to the ground; the only thing between the crimson glow of its eyes and the dripping wet of its maw is the line of the bat in Gokudera’s hand, the angle of it cutting clean across his vision. The balance is strange, the weight off-center as Yamamoto takes more control than Gokudera does; and then the Kishin egg surges in again, teeth snapping and digging in to splinter at the wood of the bat, and Gokudera can hear Yamamoto’s huff of startled pain as clearly as he can see the bat shift of its own accord to make a wall before him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gokudera blurts, and he’s reaching up, rolling flat onto his back to brace his shoulders against the ground so he can catch the other end of Yamamoto’s weapon form against his palm to take some of the burden of defense back on himself. It feels better, like this, with the wall of solid wood between his face and the threat of the Kishin egg’s sharp-edged teeth, but Gokudera can hear Yamamoto panting for breath in the back of his head, can feel the tension in the other’s consciousness as clearly as if he can see blood dripping onto the ground. _Yamamoto!_

 _I’m fine_ , Yamamoto says, without even a passing nod to the reality of the situation. Gokudera has the brief impression of a smile, of the flash of a bright grin making an attempt at comfort not at all borne out by the rasp of effort under the other’s cheerful tone. _I can hold it off, we’re okay._

 _We’re_ not _okay_ , Gokudera hisses. Over him the Kishin swings a claw-burdened hand towards his face; the sharp edges catch at the wood of the bat instead of at Gokudera’s skin, but the splinters that scatter to the ground around Gokudera chill his blood more than direct pain would do. _You’re_ hurt.

 _I’m okay_ , Yamamoto insists. _I’ll be fine, just worry about--_ and then the Kishin lunges in again, teeth sinking deep into the solid weight of the bat, and whatever Yamamoto was going to say gives way to a wet sound, as if the other’s breath has suddenly turned to the spill of blood past his lips.

Gokudera’s heart is racing. He’s flat on his back, trapped under the weight of the opponent they’re supposed to be hunting, pinned down until he can’t even move except to offer the resistance of his weapon partner like a sacrifice to the thing trying to tear them apart. He has no escape route, no way to retreat enough to regain the upper hand; and in his head Yamamoto is coughing, gasping for air like he’s choking on his own blood, his cheerful optimism disintegrating entirely to the blows he’s taking on Gokudera’s behalf. Gokudera is going to hear him die, he realizes distantly, he’s going to lie here watching his weapon partner die for him while he can do nothing but let it happen; and somewhere inside him, somewhere deep down inside the brittle rigidity of his psyche, something snaps into place.

“Fuck _you_ ,” Gokudera says, and he _shoves_ , surging upward and off the ground with all his strength. The Kishin egg is heavy, the weight of its presence as much a burden as the actual mass of its body, and for the first moment Gokudera can’t gain traction enough to push upwards, can’t wrench the weight of Yamamoto’s weapon form free of the Kishin egg’s hold on it. There’s no way to break him free, Gokudera lacks the strength to overcome the enemy’s power in a direct conflict; and Gokudera hisses, something raw and visceral and gritted-teeth determined in the back of his head: _Yamamoto_ , move, and Yamamoto moves, and the world moves with him.

Gokudera can’t figure out what’s happening for the first moment. The weapon in his hand is moving, it’s sliding free of the Kishin egg’s grip on it; but he’s shifting too, he’s the thing that’s moving, he can feel the tear of teeth in him slipping free to drag off him as if he’s gone sleek and unbreakable all at once. In Gokudera’s hand the wood of the bat is shifting, is narrowing and fitting to the grip of his fingers, there’s a metal weight settling itself against his clenched-fist grip; but he can feel the fingers too, as if he’s the weapon in Yamamoto’s hold, as if it’s the other boy’s grip tightening on him as quickly as his handle shifts forms into something smoother, sleeker, stronger.

 _Yamamoto_ , Gokudera thinks, except it comes out as his own name humming in his throat, except it goes unvoiced entirely, it’s echoing in the back of his head and thrumming through the whole inside of an unfamiliar form, like he’s suddenly become a tuning fork struck hard at the edge of a table. Yamamoto takes a startled breath and Gokudera can hear it in the air around them; Gokudera pushes to sit up and the weapon in his hand shifts to swing out of its own accord. The Kishin is falling back, retreating as quickly as the meister pushes to his feet and tightens his hold on the weapon of the bat in his grip; but it’s not a bat, it’s a sword, it’s a katana, the hilt and the blade and the meister all together flickering with a blue light Gokudera would swear he can feel prickling electric across the body that was him, the blade that is him, now, the two pieces merging and melding into a single shared existence.

 _Oh_ , Yamamoto’s voice offers, and Gokudera can feel the sound humming through his veins, can feel it fitting to the inside of his chest like Yamamoto is speaking with his own voice, as if they share a single voice, as if they _are_ a single voice. _We’re Resonating_.

Gokudera would like to throw back irritation, would like to roll his eyes and huff some sarcastic response like _no shit, baseball idiot, what was your first clue?_ But he’s breathless with the shock of the sensation, awestruck in a way he can’t remember having felt since he was a child, and he doesn’t know if it’s Yamamoto’s optimism bleeding over into his psyche or just the sheer intensity of the experience but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make a difference, he’s dizzy with the force of it but there’s a sword in his hand, there’s a grip around his hilt, and in front of him there’s a target waiting to be dealt with.

 _Let’s go_ and Gokudera doesn’t know if it’s his voice, if it’s his thought, if it’s his jaw clenching on determination or if the expression shifting across his face is something borrowed from Yamamoto instead. It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care; he’s a single entity, meister and weapon together in a single unit, and he doesn’t have to think at all to urge himself to his feet, to brace his shoes against the ground and lift his free hand to close hard around the handle of the katana in his hold.

The movement of his feet feels natural, unthinking, so obvious he can’t imagine framing words to it. Even as the Kishin egg in front of them recoils back and away they are swinging forward, muscle and metal falling into perfect harmony as the glowing edge of the katana carves out a precise arc in the air before them. The end of the blade catches at the tangle of shadows, slicing smoothly through the darkness before them, and Gokudera can hardly feel any resistance but the Kishin egg shrieks protest, falling back and away from them in a desperate retreat. But they’re the attacker, now, they have the strength of the upper hand, and as the Kishin egg skitters backwards they surge forward like a cresting wave, like a sudden storm, rushing over the distance to catch and close around the enemy before them. The katana’s edge curves, the weapon slices cleanly through the shadowy figure, and the Kishin egg disintegrates into flecks of darkness that dissolve into the air as fast as they can be seen.

Gokudera sees the crimson light of the corrupted soul rise to visibility, feels a momentary urge to pull it into himself, to draw the power of it into his blade and make it his own. There’s a moment of disorientation, a conflict rising to the surface of his awareness as his desires run up against his own self-awareness, as his soul reaches for satisfaction and his mind insists on his own identity; and Gokudera snaps back into himself with a gasp, feeling his psyche land back inside the space of his own head with all the force of a rubber band returning to its original shape. His heart is racing, his balance swaying dizzy under him; and in his hand the katana flickers, the smooth curve of the metal giving way to the familiar weight of the baseball bat in his hands.

“Oh,” Gokudera says, his own voice sounding odd and compressed inside the space of his chest, and the weight in his grip shifts, the bat glowing blue with familiar light as the shape of it gives way to reform into Yamamoto, on his feet in his human form. He looks shaky as he comes into himself -- his feet are unsteady, his face bruised, he has blood wet against one side of his shirt -- but when he turns to Gokudera his eyes are alight, his whole face is glowing with a smile so brilliant it completely overshadows Gokudera’s concern for his physical well-being.

“Gokudera!” Yamamoto says. “That was amazing!” And he takes a step in, and reaches out for Gokudera’s hair, and Gokudera is just processing the weight of Yamamoto’s fingers against the back of his head when there’s warmth against his mouth, and the press of friction against his lips, and Yamamoto is kissing him.

Gokudera doesn’t move. He doesn’t have time to process what’s happening, much less to decide how he wants to react or how he would express himself even if he knew what he wanted to offer; for the first drawn-out heartbeats of time he’s just staring wide-eyed at the dark of Yamamoto’s tousled hair so close in front of him, his attention holding to the curve of the other’s cheekbone just in front of his eyes. His mouth is half-open, still reaching for some statement entirely lost in the weight of Yamamoto’s mouth against his; his hands are at his sides, his fingers slack and curling against the texture of his jeans instead of offering any reaction at all. He should move, Gokudera thinks wildly, he should lift his hands to Yamamoto’s shoulders, should press his palms to the other’s chest and shove him away or curl his fingers up into the other’s hair and pull him down into the active crush of Gokudera’s mouth against his; but he can’t think enough to even close his eyes, much less to offer a coherent response to what’s happening to him at the moment. All Gokudera can do is hold perfectly still, staring at the tan of Yamamoto’s skin and the dark of his hair while the other’s mouth presses hard against his; and then Yamamoto is pulling away, gasping a lungful of air like he’s only just remembering to breathe again, and Gokudera can suddenly see the whole of the other’s face instead of just the up-close detail of his features.

“That was so cool,” Yamamoto is saying, his eyes wide and smile bright and voice totally normal, as if he regularly presses the heat of his mouth close against Gokudera’s, as if the fact of their Soul Resonance is of more interest than the fact that he just _kissed_ Gokudera, as if he is still thinking about the thrum of that moment of connection and not the way Gokudera’s whole mouth is burning with his awareness of that contact. “Do you think we can do that every time?”

Gokudera blinks. He’s staring at Yamamoto, gaping at him, really, his mouth open with the incoherent shock of that too-brief contact, his thoughts scattered beyond his own saving. “What?”

“I can’t believe we Resonated so easily,” Yamamoto beams, his bruised face glowing radiant with unfettered joy. His mouth is soft around the curve of his smile. Gokudera wonders if it would feel as warm under his fingertips as it did against his mouth, wonders what he would have to do to find the strength to lift his slack hand from his side and reach up to find out. At the back of his head Yamamoto’s fingers ease, Yamamoto’s hand slides through his hair in a momentary caress before his touch draws away, before his hand falls to his side as he takes a half-step back. “That was pretty cool, Gokudera, don’t you think?” He tips in by an inch, curving his shoulders in towards each other as he pushes his hands into his pockets; the motion makes him look submissive, like he’s surrendering himself to Gokudera before Gokudera has yet even thought of what to ask. “We really are a good team after all!”

Gokudera blinks hard, closes his mouth, takes a breath. “Of course we are,” he says. His voice is trembling, he can feel the flutter of it at the back of his throat; he flexes his chest, clenches his fingers, tightens the corners of his mouth down into the familiar comfort of a scowl. “I’m going to be the best meister the Academy’s ever had. You’re lucky to be working with me.”

Yamamoto’s smile spreads across his whole face, crinkling at the corners of his eyes and dimpling in his cheeks. “Ha,” he says, and “yeah,” and then he’s turning, moving away towards the glow of the Kishin egg’s soul while Gokudera is still trying to decide if he imagined the softness on Yamamoto’s voice or not.

Yamamoto’s back is still turned when Gokudera finally manages to lift his hand from his side and steer his body into actual movement. Gokudera’s grateful for that, at least. He doesn’t want Yamamoto to see the expression on his face as he presses his fingertips against the lingering heat of the other’s lips at his mouth.


	8. Lull

They linger at the location of the fight for several minutes, while Yamamoto figures out how to eat the glowing red soul and laughs about the strange texture as he swallows and while Gokudera tries to reestablish his sense of balance and connection to reality at the same time. His balance comes back but his grasp on the present does not; even once they’ve begun the trek back to their apartment he feels like he’s accidentally ended up in some kind of strange dreamscape where he could fall into Resonance at any moment and kisses from his weapon partner are a constant possibility. It’s enough to keep his attention fixed inward, enough to tie him to his own thoughts until Yamamoto stumbles and almost falls over an unevenness in the ground; it’s only then that Gokudera remembers the damage done to the other’s weapon form and thinks to wonder about the extent of the physical damage.

“Are you okay?” Gokudera demands with more aggression on the words than audible concern. When he reaches out it’s without thinking, stepping in over the gap between them to grab and steady Yamamoto’s arm in his hold before he’s thought through the implications of the contact. “How hurt are you?”

“I’m fine,” Yamamoto says, but he’s leaning hard against the support of Gokudera’s hold on him, and when he looks down to flash a smile it’s a little softer than it usually is, a little slower to form than his usual cheer. “I just got a little bruised, it’s nothing that won’t heal!”

“You were getting torn apart,” Gokudera informs him, scowling up at the other as he lifts his free hand to close around Yamamoto’s arm to offer more support than just the extra stability of his presence. “You could have some major internal injuries or a concussion. Do you feel dizzy at all?”

“I’m fine,” Yamamoto says, his voice so gentle and soothing Gokudera actually believes him in spite of all the possibilities to the contrary. His head tips very slightly to the side; when he blinks his lashes draw heavy and soft over his gaze. “Thanks for worrying about me.”

Gokudera’s shoulders tense, his face burns instantly hot with embarrassment. “ _What_ ,” he snaps, and he’s looking away at once, fixing the forest in front of them with a truly vicious scowl as his cheeks flame crimson. “I’m not--I’m not _worried_ about you, don’t be stupid.”

“Haha,” Yamamoto says, and “okay,” with that easy surrender so endlessly frustrating to all Gokudera’s attempts at inciting the heat of real anger in the other. Gokudera doesn’t know what else to say to that, doesn’t know how to argue that Yamamoto sounds like he’s mocking him more than really sincere, so he keeps his mouth shut instead, glaring out into the darkness with enough force, he thinks, to frighten off any additional attackers who might mistake them for easy prey. He doesn’t say anything else over the half-hour it takes them to get back to their apartment, and neither does Yamamoto, but Gokudera doesn’t pull away either, even when the whole of his arm starts to ache with the effort of bearing some measure of the other’s weight.

Yamamoto goes straight to bed when they get back. He’s still smiling, still offering his usual overabundant cheer in Gokudera’s direction in spite of the deep set scowl Gokudera turns on him in return; but he makes for the bedroom instead of the shower when they return, making his way down the hallway with an overly careful stride that prickles concern up the whole of Gokudera’s spine all over again.

It’s not that he’s worried. Weapons get hurt in fights all the time; it’s one of the first things they’re taught at the Academy, is that the natural resilience of weapons makes them excellent partners for their more fragile meister counterparts. There’s no reason to be worried, Gokudera tells himself as he rinses dust and sweat from his skin and runs the bathtub full of blisteringly hot water; Yamamoto will be fine, of course he’ll be fine, there’s no reason Gokudera needs to hike out to the Academy tonight and demand that Shamal come back with him to look at his weapon partner. The doctor’s probably out with a girl anyway, Gokudera thinks as he leans back to submerge his head under the water and let the wet soak his hair to dark; the soonest they’ll be able to get medical attention is in the morning anyway. There’s no point to worrying, not when Yamamoto was able to walk back from the forest more-or-less on his own; he’s probably fine, all Gokudera should be worrying about is taking care of himself and getting some rest of his own, when he can find it.

He intends to sleep in the living room. Rest comes slowly to him, when it comes at all, and with the stress of sharing a room he’d rather not keep Yamamoto awake through the dark hours of the night just because he can’t fall into unconsciousness himself. But he can’t focus on the pages of the book he tries to read, much less make any attempt at all at unconsciousness, and finally he tosses the book onto the coffee table and gets to his feet to pad down the hallway to the bedroom to check on how Yamamoto is doing.

Yamamoto is sound asleep. There’s no question of that; he doesn’t so much as stir when Gokudera eases the door open, either for the whisper-soft sound of the door moving or for the faint spill of light from the illumination in the living room. He’s sprawled across his bed, one arm thrown up over his head and the other weighting the tangle of sheets over him in place across his stomach; Gokudera can see the steady rhythm of the other’s breathing working in the flex of muscle across his bare chest. He’s left his shirt on the floor, turned inside-out around what must be a mess of dirt and blood alike; there’s a row of scratches across Yamamoto’s ribcage, the prints of Kishin egg claws that must account for the sticky blood Gokudera saw when the other transformed back. They’re not particularly deep, and not bleeding anymore; Gokudera doubts they’ll even leave a scar, after a few day’s time to heal. Yamamoto’s face is cleaner too; aside from the bruise rising against the line of his jaw he looks unhurt, his expression as relaxed by the draw of sleep as his position over the bed is. His breathing is coming steady; there’s none of the struggle Gokudera was afraid of hearing, no trace of the effort that he was imagining in the living room. There’s just Yamamoto, sprawling to fill all the narrow lines of his bed, his breathing easy and his mouth soft; and Gokudera can’t look away from him.

It’s like he’s never seen Yamamoto properly before. It’s been easy to write him off as an idiot, to disregard the details of his features for the foolish cheer of the smile he wears with such regularity; easier than it should have been, some voice in Gokudera’s head whispers, like Gokudera was just looking for an excuse to ignore his weapon partner as much as possible. But with the unnerving warmth of those gold eyes eased into sleep and the bright curve of that smile softened into relaxation, Gokudera is left to stand in the doorway of their room, his heart pounding in his chest and his breathing catching in his throat as he remains utterly transfixed by how beautiful Yamamoto Takeshi looks asleep.

It’s the fault of the kiss, he thinks distantly, the thought coming like a far-off murmur in the back of his head. He’s been fine before now, he’s had no problems holding himself together; it’s not that there’s anything particularly remarkable about the hazel of Yamamoto’s eyes or the bright of his smile or the lean, athletic grace of his body. He’s just an ordinarily attractive boy, not worth sparing a second glance for under most circumstances. But Gokudera’s mouth is still weighted with the friction of Yamamoto’s against it, he can still recall the taste of the other’s lips sweet and clear like spring rain against his, and when he looks at Yamamoto’s face now all he can see is how dark and soft the other’s lashes are, all he can pay attention to is the part of the other’s lips against the easy rush of his breathing.

It would be so easy to take advantage of him, Gokudera thinks. The room is small, a narrow space barely wide enough to fit both their beds at once; he could cross the room in a matter of strides, could pad in near-silently and drop to his knees alongside Yamamoto’s bed without stirring the other from the depths of unconsciousness he’s currently wandering. Gokudera could brush his fingers through the sleep-soft of the other’s hair, could ghost his touch over the bruise at Yamamoto’s jaw and against the smooth straight of his nose; he could press his palm against the other’s cheek, could hold him still against the disorientation of waking and lean in to press his mouth to Yamamoto’s in return, to pull him into consciousness like the hero of some childish fairy tale.

Gokudera’s heart is racing, his breathing catching faster at the very idea; and then Yamamoto stirs, his head turning slightly against the pillow under him, his fingers curling in on some unformed dream-thought, and Gokudera is abruptly thrown back into his reality: no prince, no fairy tale, just himself, Gokudera Hayato, with an injured weapon partner and his whole body aching with exhaustion from the fight they barely survived. He takes a step back instead of closer, moving away from the doorway instead of through it, and it’s only once he’s out of sight of the bedroom that he turns to go back out to the living room so he can turn the light off. It’s hard to make his way back down the hallway in the dark -- he has to run his fingers along the wall to orient himself, and he’s sure his steps are far louder than they were on his first trip -- but he finds his way to the door, and through it, and even pushes it shut behind him without incident. The path to his bed is clear, his familiarity with the room enough to guide him forward; and then he steps too far, and kicks the side of his bed, and the hiss that breaks free from his throat is too immediate to be caught back.

“ _Ow_ ,” he gasps against the dark of the room, agony flaring up his spine even as the more composed part of his thoughts flinches at the obvious effect the sound will have on his roommate asleep a few feet away. “ _Fuck_.”

There’s the shift of blankets, the squeak of a protesting mattress spring. “Gokudera?” Yamamoto’s voice is slow and dragging on sleepiness; he sounds as soft and drowsy as Gokudera is sure he looks, if there were light enough to see by. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gokudera growls with more of an edge on the words than he intended to give them; it’s difficult to modulate his tone with his whole body tingling with the pain of slamming his shin against the frame of his bed. “Go back to sleep, you need to rest.”

“Yeah,” Yamamoto says, the word coming quick with drowsy agreement. There’s the sound of a yawn, the drag of it long enough that Gokudera can feel contagious strain threatening his jaw as well. “Are you going to sleep too?”

“I wouldn’t be walking through a dark room without turning the light on otherwise,” Gokudera tells him.

“Mm.” Yamamoto makes the murmur sound like a laugh, if one made slow and heavy on sleep. “Good,” punctuated with another yawn Gokudera can hear thrumming against the other’s chest. “You had a hard fight today, you should take it easy on yourself.”

Gokudera can feel his face go warm, can feel the burn of embarrassment spreading color across his cheeks. At least in the dark there’s no one to see it, but his voice still catches in his chest when he tries to speak, still goes strained on self-consciousness when he manages to offer a response. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the only one, baseball idiot. _You’re_ the one who ended up bleeding.”

“Ha, yeah.” Yamamoto shifts on his side of the room; as Gokudera’s vision adjusts to the darkness he can see the angle of the other’s shoulder as he turns under the blankets, can make out the dark of the other’s hair from the paler tan of his face and the tangle of sheets around his hips. “We did good work together, didn’t we?”

It’s almost rhetorical. Gokudera thinks it might be in truth, on someone else’s lips; he could huff an exhale that doesn’t quite commit to a response, and climb under his blankets, and go to bed without offering anything further. But Yamamoto’s face is coming into focus as Gokudera’s eyes adjust, the shadowed part of his lips and the line of his nose and the dark of his lashes, and his eyes are open, his gaze fixed on Gokudera across the room like he can see every detail of the other’s expression in perfect clarity, as if he’s seeing straight through whatever defenses Gokudera might be able to muster and down to the heart of him at once. Gokudera feels sure Yamamoto will keep watching him until he gets an answer, will wait patiently for a reply even if Gokudera tries to avoid giving one, and in the end it’s Gokudera who looks away, who ducks his head to frown at the dark of his bed under him as he fumbles to tug the blankets down and back from the mattress.

“Yeah,” he says, agreement unfamiliar and so rough on his tongue he has to clear his throat hard to force the words out. “Sure. Go to sleep, Yamamoto.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is very soft and very quiet; Gokudera can’t explain how it is that it seems to fill the room with warmth, can’t explain the way he can feel the sound of it like a touch ghosting against the part of his lips, like an echo of that brief, overheated kiss of enthusiasm in the shadows of the forest and the glow of fading Resonance.

“Okay,” Yamamoto says. “Goodnight, Gokudera.”

Gokudera doesn’t answer. He occupies himself with pulling back the blankets of his bed, with fitting himself under the sheets and fussing with the weight of the comforter until it lies the way he wants it to. By the time he risks a glance back Yamamoto’s eyes are shut, his expression relaxed again; it seems impossible that he’s drifted to sleep so quickly, but his breathing is even too, deep and slow and as calm as his expression. Gokudera lies still for long minutes, staring at Yamamoto across the room and listening to the sound of the other’s breathing; and then he turns over, shifting to lie on his side so he can stare wide-eyed at the wall instead of at Yamamoto on the other side of the room.

It’s a long while before the soft rhythm of Yamamoto’s even breathing lulls him into sleep of his own.


	9. Opportune

“You had better be up to this,” Gokudera growls under his breath, cutting his gaze sideways at Yamamoto striding easily next to him. “I can’t have you falling apart on me in the middle of a fight because you didn’t take enough time to recover.”

“I’m fine!” Yamamoto sounds as chipper as ever, his smile flashes as brightly as Gokudera has ever seen it; and it’s true he’s walking smoothly, without any indication of the bandage taped close over those scratches Gokudera knows are lying just over his ribs. “You can count on me. We’re partners, right?”

“Be quiet,” comes a voice from a few feet ahead of them, the tone flat and levelled off from any emotion beyond chill judgment. “If you can’t keep your mouths shut I’ll bite you to death.” Gokudera scowls at the dark coat of the meister in front of them, only a few years older but more than aggressive enough to claim full dominance over their assigned group; but Yamamoto just laughs at his side, his tone as unaffected as if the older student has asked them politely to lower their voices instead of coupling the request with an ill-natured threat.

“Sure!” he says, and then he’s transforming, flickering into that familiar blue light before Gokudera has a chance to say anything at all. Gokudera frowns at this as he extends his hand into the haze of blue; when he closes his fingers they tighten against the handle of the baseball bat that is rapidly becoming a familiar weight against his palm.

 _Idiot_ , he thinks with as much bite on the word as he can mentally muster. _You transform for_ me _, not because some stuck-up senpai tells you to._

 _Hibari’s just focused_ , Yamamoto soothes. _He’s a great meister, the whole Academy says so!_

 _Is he?_ Gokudera snaps back. _Maybe if you suck up a little harder he’ll take pity on you and take you on as an alternate weapon partner._

 _Ha!_ Yamamoto sounds sincerely amused, without any trace of the irritation or hurt Gokudera half-hoped to spark. _I don’t need a new meister, I have you!_

It’s just a true statement. There’s nothing under the words other than sincerity, an obvious declaration of fact that hardly even carries the weight of a compliment with it. Gokudera’s cheeks still go warm with self-consciousness, he can feel them burning even when he ducks his head to let his hair fall into a curtain before his expression.

 _Shut up_ , he thinks, and then he swings the weight of Yamamoto’s weapon form up to rest against his shoulder and falls into pace behind the lead the other meister is taking.

There’s three of them in all: the upperclassman Hibari, Gokudera himself, and Tsuna again, so pale and shaky Gokudera is a little concerned the other is in danger of outright collapse before they even make it to the point where the gang they’re meant to be taking down is hiding. Reborn is transformed just like all the other weapons, but Gokudera thinks Tsuna is the more jumpy for the weight of the revolver in his trembling hands than soothed by the ability to defend himself. Gokudera’s been eyeing him since they left the Academy, wondering if he’ll need to step in to offer physical protection to the other meister in the event of actual combat; but Tsuna’s kept on his feet, at least, and kept moving forward in spite of his obvious nervousness, and there’s been no trace yet of any more threat than that offered by Hibari leading them. It’s supposed to be practice for a group fight, something Gokudera understands is required by the Academy’s standards; but judging from the way Hibari’s been leading the way without so much as a glance over his shoulder, he has every intention of taking on the whole group of enemies they’re meant to be targeting singlehandedly.

“Reborn says we’re almost there,” Tsuna offers as Gokudera falls into step alongside him. He barely glances up at the other; his gaze keeps clinging to the back of Hibari’s coat in front of them, like he’s afraid the other might turn and pounce on him if given the least opening to do so. “It’s just at the top of this hill.”

He’s not speaking loudly -- Gokudera thinks the sound of his own boots against the ground might be making as much sound -- but Hibari speaks without turning around, his voice crisp and clear against the sunset dim around them. “Are you crowding again?” There’s a glint of light, a flash of illumination off sleek metal as he lifts a hand to raise the tonfa he’s been holding close to his side to visibility. “I don’t need any help from herbivores who need to gather together for safety.”

“No!” Tsuna says, sounding panicked and looking more so as he raises his hand palm-up to gesture away Hibari’s question. “No, we’re fine, we’re not crowding.” He moves away from Gokudera with terrified alacrity; Gokudera frowns at the back of Hibari’s head, irritated by the sense of submission implied by his own silence, but he doesn’t say anything aloud, and after a moment Hibari sweeps his coat wide and draws his tonfa back in front of him rather than around into a threat.

They continue in silence for another few minutes. They’re not making a concerted effort towards quiet beyond Hibari’s personal objection to any kind of friendly conversation; Tsuna’s steps are as loud as the crunch of gravel under Gokudera’s boots, and ahead of them Hibari is walking with his shoulders so straight that he undoes any attempt at secrecy just by the sheer force of his presence as he moves. But there’s a low hum of sound in the distance, the murmur of a festival a few streets away swelling to offer the hum of white noise to fill the usual quiet of the falling night, and Gokudera thinks it’s that that lets them climb the stairs leading up to the hilltop unnoticed, that lets them step forward and onto the paving stones lining the crest before the cluster of gang members at the other side of the space realize they’re there.

There’s more of them than Gokudera expected. He had been anticipating five, maybe six; a few easy marks for each of them to take on, with each of their opponents sufficiently fragile to make defeating them an easy task. But there’s over a dozen he can see in his first glance, a tight-packed knot of humanity that turns to look at the three meisters as they come into the space, and for a moment even Gokudera’s drive for victory flags at the sheer numbers confronting them.

“Oh shit,” he says, and his feet stall him at the far edge of the pavement, just over the crest of the hill. At his side Tsuna is balking as well, actually rocking back on his heels like he’s thinking of staging a full-blown retreat, and Gokudera isn’t going to run but he’s not quite sure how to approach the crowd, doesn’t know what line of attack would be most effective to keep himself from getting surrounded. “There’s so _many_ of them.”

“ _Herbivores_ ,” Hibari grates out, and even with the mass of enemies starting to move towards them the sound of the other’s voice is enough to drag Gokudera’s attention forcibly sideways to his temporary ally instead. It’s not that Hibari sounds any warmer than he did on their way here, when he gave voice to those few clipped commands that passed for social interaction between the three of them; but what Gokudera had thought of as a cold tone is nearly lukewarm compared to the icy frost collecting on Hibari’s voice now. “Animals _crowding_.” And he’s moving without any warning at all, striding forward straight towards the mass formed by the enemy without waiting to give Gokudera or Tsuna a chance to realize what he’s doing. Gokudera gapes at the other’s back, his thoughts stalled out on pure shock for a few brief seconds; and then Hibari swings his hand out, his tonfa arcing through the air to crush hard against the jaw of one of his opponents without waiting for an attack to land on him first, and everything happens at once.

It’s Tsuna who shouts, Gokudera thinks. There’s definitely a sharp note of sound in the air, a yelp of near-panic that rings high over the roar of sudden fury in front of them; but Gokudera is yelling too, his chest flexing hard on the adrenaline that roars through him like the backlash from an explosion. He’s moving without waiting for his mind to catch up with his body, the tension of expectation snapping free into a surge of action, and in his hands Yamamoto is glowing, and Gokudera’s skin is humming into blue flame with every forward step he takes. Gokudera lifts the bat off his shoulder as he draws in nearer, braces his foot flat on the ground to steady himself for a swing, and by the time the wood connects with one of their enemies it’s not wood at all, it’s the sleek curve of a blade glowing as if illuminated from within. There’s none of the bruising impact Gokudera was ready for, none of the recoil jolting up his shoulders he was expecting; just fluid movement, the edge of the blade so sharp it cuts through the shape in front of them as if tearing through tissue paper, and the enemy disintegrates into shadowy motes before it even has a chance to scream. From behind them there’s the sound of a gunshot, from deeper inside the mob of humanity a short, cut-off scream as of a shout sliced through by an impact to a throat; but they don’t turn around to see Tsuna or Hibari either one. They’re a unit, a single entity, Yamamoto’s edge and Gokudera’s reflexes and all the vicious bite Gokudera can muster alongside the athletic strength Yamamoto always shows in his human form, and there’s no thought needed for this, no conscious decision to the motion graceful as a dance in the body they both share. Each action is a progression of the last: the set of a foot leads into the swing of an arm, the curve of the blade steering them from opponent to opponent as if knocking down dummies in a practice ring. There are shadows spilling from every cut they make, the flicker of crimson souls appearing from the unravelling human shapes of their enemies; and then they step forward through the latest collapsing shadow, and pivot back to consider the mob, and there’s no enemies left standing.

There’s a moment of hesitation, a breath where they are coexisting in the same body, where their grip on the handle of the weapon is an unthought connection of a part of themselves, like the connection of an arm to a shoulder or a foot to an ankle. Then Gokudera blinks, his vision wavering hazy with his sudden awareness of himself, and in the back of his head there’s a huff of air, a noise from his own mind or Yamamoto’s, he can’t tell which. The katana in his hands melts away, the smooth line of the blade giving way to the weight of the usual baseball bat; and in front of him, alongside Tsuna gaping open-mouthed at him, Reborn is reforming into his human shape, the brilliant spill of light in Tsuna’s hand shifting to coalesce into the dark jacket and unreadable eyes of the Death Weapon himself.

“Oh my god,” Tsuna says, still staring at Gokudera and the weapon in his hand like he’s never seen them before. “What _was_ that?”

“Soul Resonance.” It’s not Reborn, as Gokudera half-expected; the voice comes from farther across the pavement, where Hibari is just turning around to gaze at them. The air around him is a haze of crimson; there are so many Kishin souls throwing faint light into the space around his feet that his coat is taking on a scarlet hue, the dark of it illuminated to illusory red for a moment. “They Soul Resonated with each other.” His voice is warmer than Gokudera has ever heard it before; he sounds very nearly impressed, although that has no discernable effect on the bored expression on his face. “You have an excellent weapon partner, Gokudera Hayato.”

Gokudera’s whole face goes hot at once. “Shut up,” he snaps, his fingers tensing involuntarily against the handle of the bat in his grip. The resistance holds steady for a moment, the wood pressing back against his palm with familiar weight; and then Gokudera’s fingers start to glow, the bright light of transformation forms itself around the shape of the weapon under his hold, and he hisses half-formed protest and lets his grip go as Yamamoto shifts back from weapon to human form.

“Resonance only works with two people!” Yamamoto volunteers as his feet touch back against the ground and he tips his shoulders forward to fit his hands into his pockets. “Gokudera’s a great meister too!”

Gokudera didn’t think he could blush any harder than he already is. He realizes his mistake as he feels his skin flare into what feels approximately as hot as the surface of the sun, as his throat closes up on an incoherent yelp of protest at this so-casually declared compliment.

“Shut _up_ ,” he says, and he’s reaching out to swing a punch at Yamamoto’s arm, to shove the weight of bruising knuckles in against the other’s bicep. Yamamoto stumbles sideways to the force, laughing protest as he lifts a hand to rub against the impact left by Gokudera’s knuckles, but he’s turning to look and that means Gokudera can fix him with the full force of his glare. “Don’t just say things like that. _God_ , you’re so _embarrassing_.”

“I don’t know why you’re embarrassed,” Yamamoto tells him, his mouth soft on a smile and his eyes bright with happiness. “It’s just true.”

“Just because it’s true doesn’t mean you have to _say_ it,” Gokudera shoots back. “Don’t you ever keep _anything_ to yourself?”

Yamamoto’s lashes dip, his smile shifts. Gokudera can watch the tension of happiness ease from the other’s expression, can see the slack soft of consideration fall over Yamamoto’s features instead. His eyes focus on Gokudera’s face, skip up to touch the fall of his hair; and then down, just for a moment, his attention visibly catching and clinging against the sharp angle of Gokudera’s fixed scowl. Gokudera can feel his stomach drop, can feel the sudden flare of adrenaline shiver electricity under all his skin as Yamamoto’s gaze lingers at his mouth, as Yamamoto’s expression goes soft with contemplation. The other’s head tips to the side, just slightly, like Yamamoto’s forgetting to hold it upright or maybe like he’s imagining angling himself into position, like the fantasy in his head is breaking free to bleed through in his body language as well; and Gokudera’s heart is racing, his breathing is stalling, he can’t figure out how to keep his balance with his whole self going dizzy with the possibility behind Yamamoto’s soft gaze.

 _He’s going to kiss me_ , a rational part of his mind offers. _He had better not kiss me_ , the sharp, angry part snaps back, like an order, like Yamamoto is still in Gokudera’s head to hear the weight of aggressive dominance on the words; and far in the back, a whisper, something so soft Gokudera can barely make out the shape of it himself, is sure even in Resonance the murmur of it would be lost to the thrum of connection to keep it secret behind his own lips.

“Really,” Tsuna’s voice cuts through, and Yamamoto blinks, and turns, and the moment evaporates like it was never there, like rain dried by summer heat before it can cool sun-baked pavement. “That was incredible, you two!”

“Ha, do you think so?” Yamamoto asks, and he’s lifting a hand to ruffle through the soft dark of his hair, and Gokudera is folding his arms tight over his chest to keep his fingers safely away from any accidental contact with the other. Tsuna is smiling at Yamamoto, and Hibari’s attention has turned to the process of collecting the scattered Kishin souls littering the ground around him, and for just a moment, Gokudera is left to himself to focus all his efforts on ignoring the whisper of the voice at the back of his thoughts.

 _I want him to kiss me again_.


	10. Incidental

The television is on when Gokudera opens the door to the apartment.

This isn’t that unusual. Yamamoto likes to have the background of a screen flickering and a low murmur of sound for most of what he does; Gokudera privately blames the distraction offered by the background noise for the other’s habitually unfinished homework, but it doesn’t make a difference to him. He can study in the quiet of the bedroom if he wants, or late at night while Yamamoto has surrendered to the comfort of sleep, and if _he_ chooses to keep his partner company through the evening hours at least he’s doing so with full awareness of what he is and isn’t going to get done as a result. Tonight the sound is turned up loud, clear enough that Gokudera can make it out from the entryway while he’s kicking his shoes free and hanging his coat up, and by the time he’s padding down the short hallway and around the corner he knows what he’ll find well before he actually sees the image on the screen.

“Are you watching baseball _again_ \--” he starts, ready to offer some grumble of protest for his least favorite of the options for the television; and then he sees two heads turning to look at him instead of one, and his usual harsh tone falls silent at his lips.

“Gokudera!” Yamamoto chirps from the half of the couch he’s sprawled across next to Tsuna, his whole face going bright as he beams up at the other. “You’re home!”

“Yeah,” Gokudera growls, uncomfortably off-balance by the addition of another person to what he had thought was a dialogue between just two. “You would have heard me come in if you weren’t so entranced by your stupid game.”

“Sorry, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna offers with sincere apology layering his tone. “I asked Yamamoto to explain the rules of baseball to me. We could go back to my apartment instead, if we’re disturbing you.”

Gokudera huffs a not-quite-answer. “You’re here already,” he says as the closest thing to permission he can find at his lips. “No point in you moving now.”

“Thanks,” Tsuna says, his expression falling soft on gratitude as sincere as his apology. “I didn’t mean to impose, I just have to figure out how the game works before Sunday and I wasn’t having any luck on my own.”

“Tsuna has a date,” Yamamoto volunteers, grinning as wide as if he’s the one with weekend plans instead of Tsuna. “He’s taking her to a baseball game! Isn’t that cool, Gokudera?”

“Huh,” Gokudera huffs. “Doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time.” He’s responding to Yamamoto rather than to Tsuna, his attention caught as it too-often is by the wide bright of Yamamoto’s gaze fixed on him; it’s not until Tsuna’s expression falls that he parses the inadvertent judgment his words carried for the other.

“Not that she feels the same way,” he caveats quickly. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy herself. Lots of people like baseball.”

“That’s because baseball is great!” Yamamoto says with his usual unassailable cheer. He leans out over the back of the couch, reaching to touch the very tips of his fingers against Gokudera’s sleeve. “Want to come watch with us, Gokudera?”

Gokudera snatches his arm away. “No,” he says. “I hate baseball, don’t you ever _listen_ to me?” He tosses his hair back from his face and looks away from the bright of Yamamoto’s gaze on him. “I’m going to get a glass of water.”

He does exactly that. The kitchen is just around the corner, barely out of eyeshot of the living room; Gokudera can hear the crackle from the television as clearly as he can hear the murmur of Tsuna’s questions and the bright delight of Yamamoto’s laugh before he frames words to his answers. Gokudera downs his first glass of water in a rush before refilling it; he stares at the full cup for a few seconds, watching a droplet of liquid slide across the smooth surface and thinking about Yamamoto and Tsuna in the other room, and the angle of Yamamoto’s arm across the back of the couch, and the narrow gap of space between the other two. Then he brings the glass to his lips to swallow the whole of it in a rush, and sets it back in the sink before he turns to stride back out to the living room.

“Move over,” he orders as he steps in front of the couch to cut between Yamamoto and his view of the television screen. “You always take up so much space, don’t you know it’s impolite?”

“Ha,” Yamamoto says. “But I’m at home” as he starts to shift to sit more upright and slide against the far side of the couch. Gokudera doesn’t wait for him to complete the motion; he’s turning himself to claim the narrow strip of cushion between Yamamoto and Tsuna before Yamamoto has entirely moved to clear the space. Gokudera’s hip runs up hard against Yamamoto’s, his knee bumps against the other’s; there’s still an inch of space on his other side, but he doesn’t move to fill it, and when he tips his head to glare sideways it’s to fix Yamamoto with the shadows of his stare rather than Tsuna.

“That’s no excuse,” Gokudera informs Yamamoto, and shifts against the couch to find some measure of comfort. He slides his foot out by an inch, tips his knee a little wider; the motion presses his leg up close against Yamamoto’s, but he doesn’t pull away. “You should be more thoughtful, baseball idiot, there’s hardly any room for me at all.”

“Oh,” Yamamoto says. His voice sounds softer from this close up, like maybe he’s speaking more gently in consideration of how near Gokudera is. “Yeah, sure, okay.” His words are meaningless, vague agreement without any added content of his own; but Gokudera can feel the other’s gaze on him, can feel the weight of Yamamoto’s attention clinging closer to him than to the game on the television screen in front of them. His skin prickles, his breathing catches; and against his shoulder, over the back of the couch, Yamamoto’s hand shifts very slightly until the weight of his thumb is barely skimming the very edge of Gokudera’s shoulder.

It might be an accident. It might not be on purpose, might be incidental contact instead of intentional. Gokudera tells himself that firmly, through the whole span of the baseball game he sees none of at all, and if Yamamoto’s touch is an accident, well, he can make the same claim about the press of his knee against the other’s.

Still, he’s beginning to suspect Yamamoto is a lot less of an idiot than he pretends to be.


	11. Wanting

Gokudera can’t relax.

It’s not from the stress of classes. He’s been doing well in all his written courses, and better even in the practical work for meisters and weapons to get used to working together; it’s easy to handle Yamamoto’s weapon form when Gokudera knows about the smooth curve of metal that lies sleeping underneath the blunt force of the baseball bat, and even if they never drop into Resonance during class the rumor has spread that they _have_ Resonated, now, until most of the other students gaze at them with awestruck expressions that more than soothe Gokudera’s desire for recognition. Yamamoto is passing his lecture classes, if only just barely, and even the irritation of living with someone else has faded from Gokudera’s awareness. Yamamoto is tolerable company, as it turns out, ever-cheerful and always ready to make something to eat when Gokudera is too tired or too out-of-sorts to do it himself, and with someone else to provide meals Gokudera finds he feels far better than he did before when he was living on cup ramen and ready-made lunches from the convenience store. He’s sleeping well enough, if not perfectly, and recently his arguments with Yamamoto feel more like teasing than real anger, more a way to let off steam than anything else.

By all rights, Gokudera should be perfectly content. He has a partner he can work with, one he has already made an impression with even on those few missions they’ve been on; he’s eating better than he can remember doing in years, and his sleep is regular if not excessive. Everything should be easy, his life should be perfectly routine; and it’s not even close to such.

Gokudera knows why. Maybe it would be easier to bear if he didn’t, he thinks, if he weren’t so constantly aware of the exact cause for the racing heartbeat that distracts in all his classes and so shatters apart his calm in the evenings. Maybe it would be less frustrating, if he were lying awake at night for unknown reasons instead of perfectly clear ones, if he were blind enough to turn aside from the constant hum of nervous energy in him or pretend he can attribute it to another cause. But he’s not, and he can’t, and so instead he spends more and more of each night still in bed, listening to Yamamoto breathing on the other side of the room and trying to figure out why the other hasn’t kissed him again.

Yamamoto’s had plenty of opportunity. They had their mission with Hibari and Tsuna shortly after that first success, with the thrill of Resonance to urge them both towards impetuousness and shared congratulations; but Yamamoto had turned aside to laugh with Tsuna about the fight immediately afterwards, and Gokudera was left to scowl frustrated adrenaline unseen at his shoulders. Gokudera had thought maybe it was the audience, maybe it’s that Yamamoto was shy about a repeat performance with the others around to see; but when Gokudera took another solo mission two days later Yamamoto was just as cheerful, and just as enthusiastic, and as completely silent on the subject of kissing as if he had never done anything of the sort. Gokudera’s even taken to encroaching on the other’s personal space in the privacy of their apartment, hovering in the tiny kitchen ostensibly to help Yamamoto work and mostly to crowd in close against the other, or sprawling in the middle of the couch so Yamamoto has to press in against him to share one side or the other. Yamamoto never pulls away, never shows the least hesitation in returning all Gokudera’s physical contact with interest; but he doesn’t make any motion towards a repeat performance of that first kiss, doesn’t even seem to consider the possibility, and so Gokudera is left frustrated and confused and with a steadily fraying stock of the patience he has never been very good at maintaining in the first place.

He’s thinking about it over coffee, this morning. He thinks he slept for all of an hour last night, and that split into three different shifts; by the time dawn started to threaten grey against the drawn curtains over the bedroom window Gokudera was more than ready to give up on even the attempt at sleep. He has a pounding headache starting just against his temples, his eyes are dry and achy with lack of rest; under the circumstances it’s caffeine he wants first, even more than the physical comfort a hot shower would offer to his aching muscles. At least the process of making the coffee is ingrained enough in him that he doesn’t have to think about it; he can grind the beans and boil the water without any real need for functional reasoning, can pour the water over the aromatic powder he’s thus produced and wait for it to drip through while he watches with no thought in his head but the count of the minutes sliding past.

He doesn’t have to think about anything. On other mornings he might have been truly at peace for these few brief minutes, just waiting for the addition of caffeine to kick-start the pace of his thoughts into something coherent. But just because he doesn’t _have_ to doesn’t mean that he _isn’t_ , and since his mind hasn’t been willing to slow down all night Gokudera supposes he should hardly expect it to ease with the dawning of a new day. It’s too easy to think about Yamamoto, too simple a process to call up the bright of the other’s smile and the cheerful lilt of his voice over Gokudera’s name; Gokudera knows too much about him, now, can picture the dip of the other’s lashes and the ruffle of his fingers sliding idly through his hair without even trying. The thought makes him more irritable; bad enough that he can’t get any rest for his racing thoughts when he’s in the same room as the other, but now Yamamoto’s effect is bleeding over into the few quiet minutes Gokudera has to himself in the mornings, and that’s far more frustrating than anything else he could do. Gokudera scowls at the last few drips of coffee, lifts the filter full of grounds off and into the sink, and turns to find the biggest mug they have while very deliberately, actively avoiding thinking about Yamamoto Takeshi at all.

It works for a few seconds. The mug he decides he wants is on the highest shelf in the pantry; it’s within Gokudera’s reach, but only barely, and the struggle to catch his fingers against the handle and draw it down and towards himself occupies the whole of his attention for the moments it take him to retrieve it. Then he has the mug, and coffee to fill it with, and he has to track down the sugar from where it ended up on the kitchen table, and by the time he’s stirring the sweet to dissolve into the dark of the liquid some of his irritation has faded, partially due to his distraction and mostly because of the promise of relief for that headache pounding so hard at his temples. He leaves the sugar and the coffee pitcher out on the counter for his impending refill, perches at the edge of the barstool in front of his prepared cup, and he’s just closing his hands around the coffee-warmed curve of the ceramic when there’s the sound of the bedroom door opening and all Gokudera’s hard-won peace scatters like so many startled birds.

“Heya Gokudera,” Yamamoto calls from the hallway. The last of the sound is lost to a yawn wide enough that Gokudera can hear it as the other approaches even without turning around to see the sleepy strain at Yamamoto’s mouth. “You’re up early.”

“I had a headache,” Gokudera replies with far less grace than the innocuous comment deserves. “Why are _you_ awake?”

“I woke up and you were gone,” Yamamoto says without any indication of irritation on the words at all. Gokudera can hear him approaching; Yamamoto touches his fingers to the counter just alongside Gokudera’s elbow as he steps past into the kitchen, like he’s trying to remember where the edge is by touch instead of relying on sleep-hazed vision. His movement is unreasonably graceful; Gokudera can see the other’s hips shift against the weight of his pajama pants with every step Yamamoto takes, can see the fluid familiarity with the space written in the unthinking drag of the other’s fingertips over the counter and the way he’s reaching for the door to the cupboard as a single, cohesive part of his forward motion. He pushes the door open and reaches in to secure a glass before the spring-loaded hinge swings the weight of it shut again; Gokudera hisses protest at the rattle of the door closing, but Yamamoto is setting his glass down against the counter and reaching for the door to the fridge and doesn’t seem to notice. “I thought I’d keep you company.”

“I don’t need company,” Gokudera informs him with all the rough edges of his headache spilling over his tongue. He takes a pointed swallow of coffee; it burns going down, but it’s not the liquid that he’s frowning at as he sets the mug back down with more force than care. “ _Especially_ not yours, baseball idiot.”

“Ha,” Yamamoto says without turning around as he draws the jug of milk from the refrigerator. He opens it and reaches to pour the liquid into his glass; when the door to the fridge starts to swing shut he kicks a foot out to hold it cracked open without looking at it. “I won’t bother you if you don’t want to talk. You won’t even notice I’m here.”

 _I always notice when you’re here_ , Gokudera thinks but doesn’t say. Yamamoto’s hair is rumpled even more than usual by the pressure of his pillow; it’s pinned flat to the back of his neck on one side, ruffled up so Gokudera can see the tracery of a tan line between the sun-kissed gold of Yamamoto’s neck and the soft dark of his hair.

“Of course I’ll _notice_ ,” he snaps. “You take up too much damn space, I can barely get any room for myself in this place when you’re around.”

Yamamoto glances back over his shoulder as he recaps the milk. His eyes look very dark under his lashes; Gokudera can’t make out the expression on the other’s face in the moment before he’s looking back to toe the fridge door wider so he can put the milk away.

“You’re grumpy this morning,” Yamamoto says, his tone as conversational as if he’s talking about the weather. “Is your headache that bad?”

“ _What_ ,” Gokudera growls. “I am _not_ _grumpy_.”

“You’ve been trying to pick a fight all weekend.” Yamamoto lifts his glass of milk to his mouth and takes a long swallow from it; he’s wiping at his lips with the back of his hand when he turns back around to blink innocent attention at Gokudera. “Did I do something to make you mad with me?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Gokudera snaps off. “You’re...you’re _impossible_ , of _course_ I’m mad with you.”

Yamamoto’s head tips to the side, his lashes dip soft and heavy over his eyes. “What did I do?”

“What did you…” Gokudera can feel his face heat, can feel his cheeks flare to crimson as his mind offers up the curl of Yamamoto’s hand at the back of his neck, as memory suggests the part of those lips surrendering soft to the fit of his, the whisper of heat as Yamamoto’s adrenaline-rushed breathing spilled close over Gokudera’s skin. Gokudera closes his mouth tight and presses his lips against each other as he sets his jaw and glares all the fury he can muster at the other boy. “What the _hell_ kind of a question is that?”

Yamamoto’s mouth breaks onto a smile, his head tips to the side as he offers a half-formed shrug. “I’m just curious,” he says, and he’s leaning in to set his half-full glass of milk at the counter and rest his arms across the surface so he can look up from under the tangle of his hair at Gokudera on the other side. “If it’s something I’m doing that’s bothering you, I want to stop.”

It’s an obvious conclusion. There’s nothing fundamentally remarkable about the claim; Gokudera shouldn’t be caught off-guard by the simplicity of it. But it’s exactly the simplicity that trips him up, as it so often does, leaving his sleep-deprived thoughts skidding out on themselves before he can collect them, and while Yamamoto is blinking up at him Gokudera is blurting a response that comes too quickly and too reflexively for him to stand any chance at all of catching it back.

“You’re not _doing_ anything,” he growls, his fingers tightening hard against the curve of his coffee mug. “That’s the problem, you won’t--” and he cuts himself off, snapping his mouth shut around the spill of too-sincere words. But Yamamoto’s gaze is coming clear on him, Yamamoto’s lifting his head to upright on the other side of the counter, and Gokudera can feel the edges of deniability hedging closer in on him as Yamamoto’s attention fixes to cling close to his face.

“I’m not doing anything?” he asks. The chipper enthusiasm Gokudera is so used to hearing has faded; Yamamoto sounds intent, now, the way Gokudera has only ever seen when the other is watching the last few plays of a baseball game or they’re picking their way through the shadows of falling night in pursuit of some as-yet-unseen enemy. “What do you want me to do?”

“Shut up,” Gokudera says, feeling his face burning as hot as the cup between his hands and patently incapable of getting it to cool at all. Yamamoto is gazing at him with absolute focus, Gokudera would bet he’s entirely forgotten about the cup of milk alongside him on the counter; with those gold eyes fixed so intently on him, Gokudera can’t muster the will to look away even as his face burns itself into heat like a sunburn. “It’s not--that’s not important, idiot, if you don’t already know I’m not going to tell you.”

“What’s wrong?” Yamamoto presses. He’s not looking away from Gokudera’s face; his mouth is soft with sincerity. “I want to fix it if it’s upsetting you.”

“It’s _not_ upsetting me,” Gokudera snaps; but Yamamoto is watching him, and his heart is hammering in his chest, and he can’t find his breath for how strained his breathing is going. “I don’t care, it’s stupid, _you’re_ stupid.” He starts to lift his coffee cup to his mouth to take a swallow of it, as if the effect of the caffeine might somehow ease the rapidfire flutter of his breathing in his chest; and then there are words on his tongue, tension unknotting itself in his chest to demand voice at his lips, and he’s setting his cup down hard, the rattle of the mug against the counter offering harsh punctuation for the tumble of his words. “Don’t you _like_ me?”

Yamamoto’s forehead creases, his head cants just slightly to the side. “Yes,” he says, so quickly that Gokudera is groaning frustration to his misunderstanding even before the other has finished speaking. “Of course I like you. We’re partners.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Gokudera snaps at him, and he’s shoving his cup aside, giving up the minimal barrier it offers to clear the counter space in front of himself and Yamamoto instead. When he reaches out it’s reflexive, instinctive, his fingers stretching over the gap between them to close into a hard fist at the front of the other’s shirt and drag him in closer. Yamamoto half-falls, his throat offering a faint, startled noise as Gokudera drags at him, but he’s submitting without any resistance, his whole body canting forward over the counter to tip in close towards Gokudera on the other side.

“You _like_ me,” Gokudera hisses, the words spilling hot and hard over his lips as he leans in towards Yamamoto in front of him. Yamamoto’s arm slid wide over the counter to catch himself as Gokudera dragged at him; his knuckles are skimming the very front of Gokudera’s shirt. With Yamamoto tipped forward as he is Gokudera’s bar stool gives him the advantage of height; his heart is pounding in his chest, humming the faster for the angle he has on Yamamoto, for the way he can lean in to tip his shoulders far over the other’s position. “You _kissed_ me. That’s what that means. You _like_ me.”

Yamamoto’s eyelashes dip over the bright of his eyes. He’s looking up at Gokudera sideways from the angle the other has pulled him to; he doesn’t try to straighten or work himself free of Gokudera’s hold. Gokudera can see his lips part on a tiny huff of air in the moment before he speaks.

“Yes,” he says, his eyes dark, his voice soft. “I like you.”

“Then why haven’t you kissed me again?” Gokudera demands. “I’m with you all the time, we’re alone together every night, even after our last fight you just _ignored_ me.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to.” Gokudera can see Yamamoto’s throat work on the motion of a swallow, can see his lashes dip down to shadow over his eyes. For a moment Yamamoto’s gaze clings to his mouth, like he’s tracing the part of Gokudera’s lips before lifting his attention to the other’s eyes again; Gokudera can feel all his skin flush as hot as his cheeks. “You were so still the first time.”

“That’s because you _surprised_ me,” Gokudera grates out. “What was I _supposed_ to do?”

Yamamoto’s lashes flutter. “Ha,” he says, and his mouth tugs up at one corner, just for a moment of reaction. “Kiss me back, I guess.”

“You are an idiot,” Gokudera tells him, and then he’s letting his fist of Yamamoto’s shirt go so he can reach for the other’s face instead. His fingers catch at soft strands of short hair, his thumb braces just in front of Yamamoto’s ear; and he’s leaning in, and closing his eyes, and crushing his mouth hard against the other’s.

Yamamoto’s lips are as soft as they were the first time. It’s breathtaking how easily they give to the hard line Gokudera is making of his mouth; Gokudera’s sure he’s never felt anything so soft in all his life. His mouth eases to the sensation, the stress in him melting in helpless echo of the give of Yamamoto’s lips under his, and against his mouth Yamamoto makes a tiny sound, a faint whimper in the back of his throat that topples and spills over Gokudera’s lips instead of being set free into the air. It makes Gokudera’s lungs empty on shock, parts his lips in involuntary reaction, and under his hold Yamamoto shifts himself forward, lifting his head by a half-inch to fit his mouth closer against Gokudera’s. Fingers touch Gokudera’s wrist, the glancing drag of Yamamoto’s touch skims over the other’s skin, and Gokudera breaks away in a rush, as if the contact of Yamamoto’s hand against him was a shock to jolt him back to himself. His heart is racing, his breathing sticking as if on panic in the back of his throat; and in front of him Yamamoto is blinking very slowly, his lashes dragging heavy over his gaze as his attention pulls over the whole of Gokudera’s expression.

“Gokudera,” he says, soft, like he’s trying out the syllables on his tongue to see how they fit together. Gokudera watches him blink, watches some structure of coherence fit itself to the melting warmth of Yamamoto’s gaze and the slack part of his lips. Yamamoto’s attention slides up Gokudera’s face, his gaze landing to fix against the other’s eyes. “You taste like coffee.”

Gokudera has to swallow before he can find moisture enough to give the words in his head voice. “Yeah,” he says, and even that one sound trembles in his throat, shaking like it’s trying to throw off his control of it entirely. “And you taste like milk. Don’t complain.”

Yamamoto shakes his head, the motion shifting against Gokudera’s hold on him. “I’m not complaining,” he says, and he lifts his free hand, the one not ghosting against the bracing angle of Gokudera’s wrist. His touch at the other’s shoulder is tentative, as gentle as if Gokudera is some kind of bird likely to startle away at a too-fast touch, or maybe something exquisitely fragile in danger of shattering at a breath. It makes Gokudera’s heart skid faster in his chest, makes his breathing catch, and Yamamoto’s eyelashes are fluttering over the focus of his gaze again, his lips are parting on a careful inhale. “I like it.”

“Oh,” Gokudera says, and then words fail him entirely, coherency abandons him to his own devices as his fingers tighten against Yamamoto’s hair. “Good” but the word disintegrates as he leans in, it falls to silence against Yamamoto’s lips as Gokudera catches his mouth against them again. Yamamoto opens his mouth this time, parting his lips into an invitation as obvious as it is immediate, and Gokudera is pushing forward just as quickly, tasting against the soft of Yamamoto’s lips and into the heat of the other’s mouth while his hold at dark hair braces them in place. Yamamoto’s fingers trace up Gokudera’s shirt, sliding along the seam of the fabric to dip in and under the fall of the other’s hair against the back of his neck; and Gokudera is reaching out with both hands, now, spreading his fingers wide to catch and hold Yamamoto still while he kisses hard against the heat of the other’s mouth and tastes the sweet of the milk clinging to Yamamoto’s tongue and cool against his lips.

Gokudera’s headache dissipates as quickly as his bad mood does, but he doesn’t even notice its passing.


	12. Cooperation

Gokudera isn’t very good at video games.

He doesn’t have the reflexes for them, if he’s honest with himself. It’s a struggle to figure out what’s going on on the screen if it’s a fast-paced shooting game, and he lacks the snap-quick movements that would come with a childhood spent playing the brightly colored games that Yamamoto has an abundance of. Gokudera refuses to play games of any sort with just Yamamoto as his opponent; but Tsuna is a guest, after all, and so when Tsuna suggested they play something they could all join in on, Gokudera didn’t have any protest of real substance to offer to the idea.

Yamamoto’s the one who picked this game in particular. It’s a little slower-paced, for the most part, which Gokudera begrudgingly appreciates; Yamamoto could and has entirely dominated any games of speed or coordination against either Gokudera or Tsuna on previous occasions, and this at least gives the illusion of an even playing field. Gokudera set the fourth computer player to a skill level he thinks is somewhere around his own, and they’ve been working through the game since then, Yamamoto with cheerful enjoyment, Tsuna with concentrated focus, and Gokudera with irritation that flares or ebbs depending on the current state of his own gameplay.

Right now, it’s at a particular high.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he growls, shoving hard against the buttons of his controller as his avatar is knocked to the edge of the screen to whirl dizzily for the few seconds of inaction his misstep just cost him. “How the hell are you so _good_ at this, baseball idiot?”

“Ha!” Yamamoto’s laugh is bright and breathless with the same energy tipping him forward over his knees; when Gokudera glances sideways at him his whole face is glowing with attention, his mouth curved up onto a smile that Gokudera is sure is as unconscious as the idle shift of Yamamoto’s foot underneath his crossed knees. “I just have a knack for it, I guess!”

His lips look far softer now than they ever have before. Gokudera looks away again in a hurry. “You shouldn’t be,” he grumbles as his avatar collects itself and he regains control to move it back towards the jumble of movement at the middle of the screen, where Tsuna is trying valiantly to find success on his own. “The computer is impossible to work with.”

“It’s not so bad,” Yamamoto says. His avatar and the computer’s certainly seem to be having far more success than Gokudera found on the last minigame, when he was paired with the electronic companion; his failure had been assured within the first few seconds, no matter how much encouragement and suggestions Yamamoto offered him. “They’re always pretty good on this game anyway.”

“You play too many video games,” Gokudera informs him, and turns his attention back to the coordination he’s meant to be achieving with Tsuna. “I’ll take the right, you take the left.”

“Okay,” Tsuna agrees, and his avatar promptly moves to the right to cut off Gokudera’s. Gokudera hisses, confusion leaving him off-balance and frowning, and Tsuna yelps apology as he veers back. “Sorry, sorry! I can never keep my directions straight.”

“It’s fine,” Gokudera says, trying to manage some level of patience; it’s not like it’s Tsuna’s fault that Yamamoto is so uncannily good at working with the computer avatar. “On your count.”

“Right,” Tsuna says, sounding something like as frazzled as he looks. “One, two, three--” and Tsuna’s avatar presses forward, activating the switch they’re meant to do together before Gokudera’s even touched his button.

“ _Shit_ ,” Gokudera blurts, and tries to move forward to make up the difference, but the game flashes unhappiness at them and they barely make any forward progress at all.

“Sorry!” Tsuna yelps. “On three, I meant--” and the screen flickers, the view of the game itself dissolving as Yamamoto’s avatar crosses the finish line in step with the computer’s form. There’s a splash of colorful confetti that wafts across the screen, a few chirps of electronic enthusiasm, and Gokudera groans and lets his controller fall to the floor as he lifts a hand to shove roughly through his hair.

“This is awful,” he growls. “I’m no good at this, I quit.”

“Oh no, please don’t,” Tsuna says, his whole expression going soft on concern as he looks at Gokudera. “It’s not as fun with just two players!”

“Please keep playing,” Yamamoto puts in from Gokudera’s other side. He’s smiling, Gokudera can hear the bright of it on the sound of his words; Gokudera keeps his gaze fixed firmly on the screen in front of him, scowling at the shift of color and motion as a safer place for his attention than the too-close curve of Yamamoto’s mouth alongside him. “Just one more round, it’ll be fun!”

“You think _everything_ is fun,” Gokudera growls in irritable protest. “What about mashing buttons seems like a good time to you?”

“Try one more,” Yamamoto soothes. He’s tapping past the congratulations screen, moving their avatars forward by another step and prompting the game to start up another pair battle. “Maybe you’ll be really good at the next one!”

“Yeah,” Gokudera snaps. “And maybe you’ll suddenly discover a brain.” But he’s reaching for his controller again anyway, tipping forward over his knees to steady himself as he waits for the random pairs to generate; and then he sees the avatars aligned next to each other, and he groans aloud before he’s even seen the game selection.

“I should have known.” He tabs agreement fast, without waiting to see the game they’ll be playing; Tsuna is a little slower, the delay in his acceptance giving Gokudera time to cut a glare sideways at Yamamoto. “As if I don’t have enough of working with you already.”

Yamamoto just laughs. “I think it’ll be fun!” he says. “Good luck, Tsuna!”

“Thanks,” Tsuna says, sounding more resigned than certain. “I’ll do my best.”

“You can’t be worse than me,” Gokudera says, but he offers it softly, so the words can go all but ignored.

“You’re both pretty good,” Yamamoto puts in from beside him. The screen is dissolving away from the initial title display; Gokudera frowns at the countdown flashing at them and steadies his grip on the controller. “Just take your time and it’ll be fun!”

“Easy for you to say,” Gokudera mumbles, and the countdown disappears. He pushes forward, his avatar taking the lead; it looks like it’s a maze they’re meant to traverse, with one party making selections for the one behind them. “You haven’t lost a round yet.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Yamamoto says with absolute cheer. “Maybe I’ll go down in flames this time!”

“That’s not particularly encouraging.” Gokudera selects the platforming option; it’s impossible for him to succeed at with any regularity, but Yamamoto’s uncanny reflexes should let them save several seconds with the approach. “Seeing as I’m on your team for once.”

“For once,” Yamamoto laughs. His avatar has progressed forward to the next selection point while Gokudera’s is being brought forward automatically; he makes his choice instantly, before Gokudera has even had a chance to see the options. “I’m on your team all the time!”

“Stupid,” Gokudera tells him. The pathway in front of him opens up into a rope-swing maneuver he takes without thinking about it at all; the rhythm of it makes it easy, like watching a metronome for the piano lessons he used to take as a much smaller child. “This is nothing like being in a fight.”

“You don’t think so?” Yamamoto’s avatar follows hard on the heels of Gokudera’s; he’s moving forward through the next stage of the maze almost before Gokudera has made the selection, tabbing through the choices to proceed smoothly without even hesitating. “It seems pretty similar to me.”

“That’s because you’re an idiot,” Gokudera says with comfortable certainty. His stress is easing with the fluidity of his avatar’s movement; he doesn’t have to think at all for the last step, just moves forward across the smooth path Yamamoto’s selection made for him. “They’re totally different.” His avatar darts across the finish line, Yamamoto’s following close behind; and the display gives way to a burst of color, the on-screen announcement of _Congratulations! Team One wins!_ rising up to obscure Gokudera’s view of the television.

“Wow,” Tsuna says from the other side of the couch. Gokudera jumps with embarrassing adrenaline -- he had almost forgotten the other was there at all for the easy rhythm of argument with Yamamoto -- but when he turns to look Tsuna is staring at the both of them with equal shock, his eyes wide on unfiltered awe. “That was incredible.”

Gokudera can feel his mouth set on self-consciousness, can feel his face heat to crimson. “What? It was just a stupid game. Yamamoto’s good at those dumb platform things, I think he must practice in secret.”

“No,” Tsuna says, shaking his head and looking back to the screen with that same clear shock. “That was amazing. You didn’t even say anything, it was like you just knew what the other one was going to do.”

“Oh.” Gokudera’s chest goes tight on embarrassment, his shoulders hunch forward. His whole face is burning, now, and he doesn’t have the least idea how to cool it. “Yamamoto’s just easy to predict.”

“Maybe we got lucky!” Yamamoto says. When Gokudera glances at him he’s smiling all across his face, the wide, bright expression that looks like understanding but lacks the sincerity to crinkle in the corners of his eyes. “It could have been a fluke. Like beginner’s luck for Gokudera or something!”

Tsuna shakes his head, still staring at the television screen where his own avatar is back at the second selection alongside his computer-player partner. “I’m glad you two ended up working together,” he says, pressing the button to tab past the congratulations screen and back out to the main menu of the game. “You’re way better off as partners than I’d be with either of you.”

“That’s not true,” Gokudera says, aware even as he says it that the words are more stubbornness than anything else. “You’d be a fine weapon.”

Tsuna laughs and shakes his head. “I think I make a better meister, actually,” he says, and there’s a strange tone under his voice, something so close to pride that it brings Gokudera’s attention entirely around to him. “Reborn says I’ve been improving recently and he’s going to have me take on harder missions soon.” He tips his head to meet Gokudera’s gaze before his attention skips back to Yamamoto. “And you’re such a good team, it’d be too bad to split you up.”

“Haha,” Yamamoto laughs from Gokudera’s other side. “Didn’t I tell you so, Gokudera?” He leans in to bump his shoulder hard against the other’s; when Gokudera looks up at him Yamamoto is watching his face, his lashes dipping heavy over his eyes and his mouth curving on a smile so soft it looks like a secret, like he’s offering the suggestion of a kiss to flare Gokudera’s memory with the remembered warmth of his mouth.

“Shut up,” Gokudera tells him, and leans in to shove right back into Yamamoto’s shoulder as he looks back to the television. “It’s only because I’m such a good meister that I can succeed even with a baseball idiot like you.”

“Ha, yeah,” Yamamoto says, his voice so soft over the agreement that Gokudera doesn’t dare lift his head to see the way the other is looking at him. He fixes his attention on the television screen instead, forehead creasing on focus as he glares at the idle movement of his avatar, and the conversation gives way to quiet as they all return their attention to the display of the game in front of them.

They keep playing for another hour, but Yamamoto doesn’t pull away from where Gokudera is leaning against him, and Gokudera doesn’t straighten to retreat.


	13. Spirit

Their next mission is harder than Gokudera expected.

He’s been getting better. He can feel his improvement in the ease of the swings he takes with Yamamoto’s bat form, in the way the follow-through of his hips and arms and shoulders feels more natural and stable with every passing day. He doesn’t flinch back from the active lessons they do in class anymore, and since that epiphany of understanding over the kitchen counter living with Yamamoto has significantly improved, even if Gokudera isn’t yet willing to admit he enjoys it more than the alternative. It’s nice to come home to someone waiting for him, pleasant to know he won’t have to worry about finding food for himself so long as he has Yamamoto to go to the effort for him, and even the exhausting demands of social interaction are greatly eased by the pleasure there is to be had in climbing onto the other end of the couch and letting himself topple sideways against the warmth of Yamamoto’s shoulder. It’s more comfortable than a jacket, Gokudera tells himself, it’s a simple matter of convenience to have Yamamoto’s arm around him instead of his coat, and if that means putting up with whatever sports match the other happens to be watching it hardly matters when Gokudera knows they won’t be watching it for very long. All he has to do is turn his head sideways, and press his face in close against the side of Yamamoto’s neck, and within a very few minutes he can have the other entirely distracted from what he was doing in favor of paying attention to whatever Gokudera wants to do instead.

In short, things are going well. Gokudera can see himself improving, can see his partnership settling into place around him; he’s even sleeping better, with the nervous energy he usually carries soothed away by the hold of Yamamoto’s arms around him over those hours on the couch and the close-up soft of the other’s smile against his mouth whenever he wants it. As the days pass Gokudera can feel confidence forming itself in the back of his head, tentative at first and then with growing certainty, until choosing new assignments becomes a matter of some enjoyment rather than a trial to be faced down. It’s more fun with Yamamoto next to him laughing agreement or protest either one, more pleasant to imagine the fights to come when Gokudera can actually picture himself winning, and when Yamamoto had reached up to pull a higher-starred mission from the wall and said “What about this one?” Gokudera had scoffed and said “If you think you can handle it, big boy” in a tone that made Yamamoto laugh, as it was supposed to, and ended with them both egging each other on until they stamped the tag with their respective names to lay claim to it.

Gokudera knew it would be hard. Of course it was going to be a challenge; it’s a higher-ranked mission than they’ve ever taken on before, it’s hardly like it was going to prove to be a walk in the park. But he had gone out with a smile at his lips, and Yamamoto slung over his shoulder, and whatever anxiety he might have had about the fight was quiet enough for them to keep up a running conversation as they made their way through the city and into the shadows of the forest that borders it.

That stopped abruptly with the enemy’s first attack.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gokudera gasps as the most recent blow lands, a hard one that smacks across the whole of his shoulders and sends him stumbling forward and off-balance with the impact. “That _hurts_.”

 _He’s behind you_ , Yamamoto tells him, his voice so tense with strain Gokudera doesn’t even have the heart to tell him to shut up, _obviously_ he’s behind them, that’s hardly a challenge to figure out. _I don’t know how he’s moving so fast, it doesn’t make any sense._

 _We’d better figure it out_. Gokudera can hear footsteps behind him, can feel his spine prickle with awareness of someone approaching from over his shoulder; he waits with his head down, feels his shoulders heaving with the effort of his breathing as he tries to present the best image of unaware he can. _It’s either that or die here_. He waits for a heartbeat, a full second, feeling his skin crawling with terrified anticipation of the blow to come; and then he pivots sharply on his heel, lifting Yamamoto in front of his face to catch the descent of the blow as it swings down towards his head. The force rattles through his shoulders, strains hard against his back, and in front of him there’s the set gaze of their opponent, his expression unreadable and his mouth unshifting.

“Amateurs” and he pulls away and back in a flare of movement that makes Yamamoto hiss in the back of Gokudera’s head and makes Gokudera grit his teeth against the raw force the motion offers back against him. “Is the Academy so desperate that they’re sending out children after me now?” There’s a shine of moonlight off metal in front of them, the flicker of light too dappled-dark from the branches overhead for Gokudera to make any sense of; he can’t see the shape of the weapon in their opponent’s hand, can’t gauge its distance or length with any real certainty. He stumbles a step backwards, squinting in an attempt to bring his vision back into focus so he can pinpoint the extent of the danger offered by the weapon, and their opponent takes a step forward so the light catches and shifts into a wholly new shape.

“I hardly even need to draw my weapon,” he says. “I could take you both out with just the scabbard alone.”

“Shut the _fuck_ up,” Gokudera hisses. “I’ll make you eat those words before I’m done with you.”

“With that weapon?” The enemy ducks his head to nod at the bat Gokudera is clutching between both hands to hold it up in front of him like a wall. “That’s not even a real weapon. It’s a toy, for playing _games_.” There’s a glimmer of light, moonshine running sleek as water down the long curve of metal in the other’s grip; when he shifts it to clasp between both hands Gokudera can see the shape of a blade, the length of it formed of a dark metal that seems to drink the moonlight more than reflect it. “Do you think this is a game?”

“Who said I did?” Gokudera snaps back. He braces his feet against the forest floor, settles his weight in over them; this is familiar too, the stance he’s been drilling into himself with practice after practice coming so easily he doesn’t have to struggle for it, doesn’t even have to think about the position around the rattle of his heart pounding rapid-fire in his chest. “I’m going to become the greatest meister at the Academy. This isn’t some kind of stupid kid’s game to me.”

“You’re not,” the opponent says, and when he takes a step forward shadows collect around the dark of his hair, the lines of the trees around them seem to cast the illusion of armor around his face as if he’s putting on a helmet made of the night itself. “You won’t become anything, because I’m going to kill you here.” He raises the sword in his hands over his head, his stance more that of an executioner than a swordsman. “Your opportunity ends tonight.”

“Like hell it does,” Gokudera grits past tight-clenched teeth. “ _Yamamoto_ ” and he’s lifting the baseball bat in his hands, sweeping it through a clean arc better suited for the swing of a blade than the bat Yamamoto is; and in his head he can almost hear Yamamoto’s breath of relief, can almost make out the sound of his name murmured soft at lips pressing close against his hair. He reaches out towards that murmur, as if he’s tipping in to better catch the sound of the syllables against his straining ear; and the world flares to white, the dark of the night disintegrating into a burst of brilliance as if the sun itself has come alive under Gokudera’s fingers. The bat in his grip shifts, the handle fitting itself to the press of his hands; and Gokudera is fitting into the metal himself, sliding in and against the shape of the sword made more familiar to him than he ever thought anything but his own body would be. It fits him, somehow, he can feel the brilliant edge of it like it’s glittering in his own thoughts, like it’s his own defensive ire given shape under the weight of Yamamoto’s hands; and in the back of his head, humming in his chest, spreading out into all his veins to dominate and sweep over the whole of his body, there’s that sense of calm, of peace, of concentrated focus like Gokudera never feels when he’s only himself.

 _Let’s get him_ , comes a thought, forming itself from the ringing quiet in their shared minds, and movement follows as quickly, arms lifting to raise the weight of a shining blade up and overhead. There’s the weight of an impact, the high metallic _screech_ of metal sliding hard over itself, and the descending blow falls aside, the force of the attack sent off-center by the blade that Gokudera is holding, by the blade that Gokudera _is_ , by the single entity he and Yamamoto have become inside the space of their two forms.

Their opponent takes a half-step back, his entire stance giving way to telltale uncertainty as he stares at them. “That’s a sword.”

Their throat works, their chest shifts over a laugh foreign to Gokudera’s awareness but clear as water in Yamamoto’s. “It is.” Yamamoto’s words, those; but then: “Change your estimation?” cuts with the edge of Gokudera’s usual tone, carries the vicious teeth of the irritation he bears so firmly against the inside of his chest. They lift the blade up, lift themselves up; the glow is easing, is settling into saturated blue enough to cast illumination like reflections off water up against the night-dark branches of the trees around them. “Still think we’re playing?”

“Hm.” It’s a tiny huff of air, barely enough to count as an acknowledgment; their enemy shifts his feet, steadying his stance as he raises his sword again. “Perhaps not.” When he takes a step back the shadows cast across his face again, hiding whatever surrender his expression might be offering to the idea. “It makes no difference to me in the end.”

“What?” Their expression tightens, pulling taut around the irritation of a frown; it’s surprising, how impossible it is to say whose the emotion is. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s all the same.” He takes another step back; the shadows over his face linger, trailing him as if they’re pinned to his features. “You’re still going to die here.”

“Is that what you think?” They brace their feet at the ground, steadying their balance for the forward kick they need to move forward. “Not if I beat you first.”

The enemy takes another step back. It’s small, barely a foot of distance placed between them; but it’s what they were waiting for, it’s the signal they planned to move on. A shoe digs in hard against the dirt beneath them, a sneaker catching and digging for traction against the earth, and their shared existence surges forward, body and sword moving together as the blade draws up overhead, as arms tense in expectation of a swing. They’re closing the gap, they’re going to take the killing blow, they’re--

The pain is immediate. Gokudera has no chance to brace himself against it, no time even to understand what’s happening; there’s just agony, pain flaring up the whole of his body to lance through his mind and drag him out of himself, out of Yamamoto, back into the immediate, incoherent shock of what’s just happened. For the first moment he can’t even scream; there’s no air in his lungs to give the sound form, nothing he can reach for to express the blinding hurt running up his arms to dig claws in against the length of his spine.

“That’s it for your fighting,” their enemy says, the voice coming from behind Gokudera instead of in front. Gokudera blinks, his vision trying to struggle for clarity around the haze of hurt and the shadows before him, trying to find the shape of...but there’s no one in front of him, there never was, there’s only an array of darkened tree branches that form some vague outline of a human and closer, right at Gokudera’s waist, a sharply angled stump that he’s just slammed both his hands against. His grip goes slack, his fingers rendered disobedient to the demands of his mind by the pain surging through them, and Yamamoto’s reverted weapon form falls to clatter to the ground before Gokudera can make any attempt to stop him from falling.

“You must have broken at least a few fingers,” the man continues, his voice still flat and stripped of emotion even as Gokudera stumbles himself into a turn to face him, even as the weapon lying at his feet shifts into the haze of blue light that indicates Yamamoto’s return to his human form. “Maybe your wrist, too, depending on how you hit. You’re not going to be holding anything for a while.”

“Fuck you,” Gokudera manages to spit. He wants to curl his fingers to a fist, wants to throw himself forward into the relief of a physical punching match; but he can’t move his hands, and their opponent still has that dark blade held out in front of him. Running forward is suicide, so clearly even Gokudera can’t convince himself he stands a chance of aggression; but the impulse is there all the same, the vicious choice to fight instead of flee gritting against the line of his jaw and hunching his shoulders forward even as rationality says he’s doomed to failure.

“You can’t hold your weapon,” the opponent says, his voice weighted with such cold certainty that Gokudera wants to argue just for the principle of the thing. “You can’t fight.” The light over Gokudera’s shoulder eases, the illumination fades from the dark around them, and their enemy’s gaze slides from Gokudera to Yamamoto behind him. Yamamoto gasps a breath, sounding shaky and unsteady, and Gokudera can feel his blood run cold with realization even before the other continues. “And your partner took that blow to the head. He can barely stand, he won’t be running anywhere.” His gaze comes back forward and centers on the set of Gokudera’s jaw with cold, merciless attention. “Will you abandon him here and try to save yourself?”

“Go to hell,” Gokudera spits. “I’m not going to run from a weakling like you.”

“How noble,” the other intones. He makes the words sound a taunt with how emotionless they are. “You won’t be the first of my opponents to gird himself in principle.” The sword in his hand lifts, slicing a dark line through the air like a promise, like a warning Gokudera can’t make himself heed. “You won’t be the first to die for it either.”

Gokudera sets his jaw, feels all the stubborn will in him draw tight across his shoulders and tense down the length of his arms. He grits his teeth together, hisses in a breath cold enough to be his last, and when he snarls out a reply it’s with all the vicious fury he can muster in the face of certain death. “ _Fuck you_.”

Their enemy doesn’t even hesitate. The blade in his hands sweeps down, the end of it cleaving a shadowy line through the dim of the night around them; Gokudera can see it coming with painful, stark clarity, can watch it descending towards his face with all the inevitability of his suddenly weighty mortality. _I’m going to die_ , he thinks, a calm, clear thought echoing in his mind like it’s from another voice; and then:

“ _Gokudera_ ” and a weight slams into his shoulder, the full impact of another’s body running hard against his to knock him off the balance of his feet. Gokudera’s shoes slide, his weight falls back and away from the downward stroke of that sword; he can’t even throw out his hands to catch himself, with reflex locked down by the agony of injury in his fingers and wrists. He just falls, landing hard on his back as all the air in his lungs rushes out of him, and he’s left lying still and breathless and staring as the blade descends: not over him but onto Yamamoto, standing over Gokudera where his precipitous rush carried him. Yamamoto blinks, opens his mouth to speak; and the blade cuts, tearing down across the other’s back in a line marked by a sudden spill of blood that arcs away from the edge of the sword to splash over the forest floor. Yamamoto stays on his feet for a moment, his unsteady balance lingering for long heartbeats as his eyelids flutter, as his expression flickers over pain; and then he crumples to the ground without any kind of fanfare, the whole stability of his body giving way to drop him at their enemy’s feet like an offering. The opponent gazes down at him for a moment; then he raises his attention to Gokudera, his eyes dark in the shadows of the night.

“You--” Gokudera starts, finding his voice again from the impact of that first fall. “How-- _Yamamoto!_ ” He pushes himself upright by his elbows, tipping himself forward to scramble onto his knees and lean in, but the enemy is stepping forward and over Yamamoto’s fallen form without hesitating, as if he’s become an obstacle now rather than a living being.

“You see how valuable your spirit is now?” the enemy asks. “I’m done with you” and he flicks the sword in his hand, sending an arc of blood -- of Yamamoto’s blood -- spraying off the edge to fall like raindrops against the forest floor. Gokudera’s heart is pounding, his mind rushing with too many thoughts at once, with the intensity of too many conflicting emotions; and then, before the other has yet lifted his weapon again, there’s a voice, a tone as flat and emotionless as the one Gokudera’s enemy is using.

“You’re not an approved member of the Academy staff or faculty.” The voice is familiar, if Gokudera’s mind could spare the attention for it; but he doesn’t have the mental energy to place it, doesn’t have the focus to spare for anything other than shock at the sudden entrance of another party. There’s the sound of footsteps to mark the approach of a newcomer; and then a white shirt, a dark coat, the hint of red of an armband pinned to a sleeve, and Hibari Kyouya is stepping through the trees, his gaze fixed on the enemy standing between Gokudera and Yamamoto and his mouth set into a flat line of judgment. “You’re trespassing on school property.”

The opponent shifts his shoulders, just slightly, enough to turn away from Gokudera and towards Hibari. “Who are you?”

“I’m a meister of the DWMA,” Hibari says, his voice clear and cold as the moonlight illuminating the leaves of the trees around them. “And you don’t have permission to be here.” He lifts the tonfa in his hand, offering the dark line of it like an invitation to the other. “Step away from those students.”

“Interesting,” the opponent says, and he does move away, stepping back over Yamamoto without sparing so much as a glance for Gokudera kneeling in front of him. “You look like you might put up an actual fight.”

“Perhaps,” Hibari says. “I do hope you’re worth me coming out here tonight.” His gaze slides away from the other for a moment, just long enough to meet Gokudera’s shocked stare. “Your friends are on the way.” He makes _friends_ sound like a filthy word, an insult and a curse at once. “If you let your weapon bleed out before they get here you don’t deserve to be a meister.” And he’s gone, stepping back into the shadows of the trees without another glance for Gokudera or Yamamoto. The enemy follows Hibari as rapidly, similarly uninterested in beaten foes; Gokudera is left kneeling in the shadows of the forest with his heart racing, his hands throbbing, and Yamamoto lying unconscious on the ground before him. He stares after the other two for a moment, his mind racing over too many reactions to count; and then he looks down at Yamamoto in front of him, at the dark of the other’s hair and the pale glow of moonlight across his features and the slack part of his mouth, and he can feel anger and guilt and panic coalesce into a single tight knot against the inside of his chest.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spits, and he leans forward to shuffle closer to the other as he sets his teeth hard to brace himself against the pain to come. “You had better not fucking die on me now, baseball idiot.” Shrugging his overshirt off his shoulders is easy enough; it’s closing his fingers on the cuffs around his wrist so he can pull the sleeves free that burns agony down the whole of his spine, that starts the ache of tears behind his eyes. He grits his jaw tighter, drags rough at the fabric, and as it comes free the only sound that breaks from him is a hiss at the back of his throat, the one concession to the hurt washing red over his vision.

“I only just got used to working with you.” The second sleeve is easier than the first; that he can catch in his teeth, all he has to do from there is drag his aching hand back and free of the fabric. That leaves him with the soft of the cloth falling loose over his hands, and Yamamoto half on his side in front of him; Gokudera reaches out to press the fabric against the tear against the back of the other’s shirt, wadding up the cloth to offer better pressure while he presses down with his forearms rather than his injured hands to weight the makeshift bandage in place. It soaks through almost immediately, going tacky and warm against his skin, but Gokudera doesn’t pull away, and he doesn’t let his hold go.

“You have to be okay,” Gokudera says, tipping in closer so he can press against the injury with the full force of his weight. When he ducks his head his forehead presses against Yamamoto’s waist, his head fitting against the faint shift of breathing in the other’s chest. “You can’t up and die on me now, idiot.” His throat is closing up; it’s hard to breathe with his face pressed against Yamamoto’s shirt. Gokudera shuts his eyes, and presses harder at Yamamoto’s back, and he doesn’t pull away.

“You have to be okay,” he says, his voice all but inaudible even to himself as it breaks and fails in the back of his throat. “Yamamoto, you _have_ to be okay.”

Yamamoto’s ruined shirt is wet with blood, the fabric catching and absorbing the liquid as fast as it spills from his injury. Gokudera is sure no one will notice the salt-damp of tears marking out a space just alongside the curve of the other’s ribs.


	14. Touched

They don’t let Gokudera see Yamamoto.

The last he saw of his partner was the other being whisked away by a handful of the Academy faculty while Reborn took charge of Gokudera’s broken and bloodstained hands. That took up several hours of time, both in cleaning what open wounds Gokudera sustained and then in setting his fingers back to where they’re meant to be, and by the time Gokudera was braced enough for the answer to ask after his weapon Reborn told him Yamamoto was being treated, and that Gokudera should stay out of the way in the meantime, and everything was so neatly in order that Gokudera was left without even any protest to offer but meaningless frustration.

He doesn’t go home. He _can’t_ go home, not when he doesn’t know how Yamamoto is, not when no one will even tell him whether the other is awake or not. Gokudera takes up a station outside the infirmary door instead, his hands aching with the damage he did to them without any relief from the medication Shamal prescribed and Gokudera doesn’t take the time to obtain. He doesn’t want to leave the door holding him apart from his weapon partner, doesn’t want to chance missing some major update; and besides, it seems somehow right, more fair, on some level, for Gokudera to suffer through the agony of his injuries while Yamamoto might not even be conscious to feel anything at all. He curls in over his bandaged hands, lets his shoulders hunch forward until he can feel the ache all down the whole of his back, and he tries to think about _when_ Yamamoto will come to and not _if_.

Gokudera has no idea how long he sits there. His hands hurt too much for him to pay any attention to lesser inconveniences like hunger or exhaustion; his physical state is of no help in determining how many hours have passed any more than the neutral lighting of the windowless hallway around him is. Sometimes someone emerges from the room behind him: Shamal stepping out for a cigarette break that he takes without sparing so much as a glance for Gokudera, or Reborn, who couples the brief consideration he gives the other with a suggestion to “Go home and rest” that Gokudera ignores as if he hasn’t heard it at all.

“Can I see him?” is all he asks, each time, whenever the door so much as cracks open; and every time “No,” Reborn says, or “Stay out of the way,” Shamal informs him, and when they turn to go back inside they do so without allowing Gokudera more than a passing glance at the shadows and movement within. Hibari comes by, once, the steady stride of his footfalls down the hallway announcing his approach well before he rounds the corner to visibility; but he barely glances at Gokudera, his gaze flickers over the other with only disinterested attention before he looks up and to the infirmary door.

“They’re all in there?” he asks, his gaze pinned to the door rather than to Gokudera in front of him.

Gokudera hisses. “What the _fuck_ do you think.”

Hibari turns away from the door again, fixing his gaze on Gokudera instead so he can give him a cool once-over of judgment. Gokudera thinks the expression the other is offering him might be threatening, if he could spare any attention in himself for anything beyond the tense weight of concern in the back of his thoughts.

“You ought to rest,” Hibari informs him without any trace of emotion on his tone. “You’re no help to your weapon if you can’t fight.”

“Fuck you,” Gokudera tells him, but Hibari is turning away without waiting for a response, pivoting on his heel and striding away down the hallway without any indication that he has heard Gokudera’s words. His shoulders are straight, his stance even; he doesn’t look like he took any damage at all in the fight he picked up after Yamamoto and Gokudera were defeated, doesn’t look in any way ruffled. Gokudera has the brief, petty hope that he had to retreat instead, that even Hibari failed where Gokudera and Yamamoto couldn’t succeed; but he knows it’s unlikely as soon as he thinks it, and with no one around to see his reaction he can admit to himself that his bitterness is more from worry for his absent partner than anything else. He ducks his head back over his hands, returns his attention to his idle consideration of the splints bracing his fingers to stillness, and by the time the sound of Hibari’s footsteps has faded Gokudera has entirely forgotten about the other.

He doesn’t sleep. That much he’s sure of, even as the hours drag long and uncounted and his shoulders begin to slump with the weight of exhaustion bearing down on him. He can’t sleep, can’t let himself surrender to the comfort of rest when he doesn’t know if Yamamoto’s okay, when he doesn’t know if Yamamoto will _be_ okay, when he doesn’t know if anyone on the other side of the infirmary door will even tell him if things change. He has to stay awake, and alert, he has to listen to the soft scuff of shoes over the floor inside and the occasional rustle of sheets or beep of machinery and try to convince himself it’s not an emergency, that a crisis would necessitate more shouting and noise, that Yamamoto _must_ be okay if everyone inside is so calm and quiet. But then maybe he’s a lost cause already, maybe they knew when they brought him in, maybe they’re just trying to ease whatever pain he’s feeling so he can--and Gokudera groans in the back of his throat, trying to reject even the premise from his mind as he lifts his aching hands towards his head. The movement is agony, the shift of his arms enough to change the blood flow to his half-numb fingers and bright back the full force of the pain the damage brings with it, but it’s better than what he’s thinking, better than the possibilities unfolding themselves into his too-clear imagination. His palms press to his forehead, his breathing rushes out of him into the beginnings of a sob; and there’s the sound of the door opening, the _click_ of a latch and the squeak of hinges, and Gokudera is lifting his head to gape at the open door before he can think to compose his expression at all.

It’s Reborn standing there, his expression as stoic as ever and his suit as perfectly aligned on his shoulders as it was when Gokudera last saw him. He barely glances at Gokudera before stepping out into the hallway and letting the door swing shut as he angles to lean back against the support of the wall behind him.

“You want to become a great meister,” Reborn says without any lead-in at all, without even looking at Gokudera. If there were anyone else in the hall Gokudera would wonder if the words are even meant for him in the first place; even as it is it takes him a moment to make sense of them, to collect his emotions back from the verge of tears they were on to offer a response.

“Yeah,” he says. His voice creaks over the word, threatens to shatter entirely in his throat; he has to press his lips tight together and swallow hard before he can make another attempt at coherency. “Yes. Like my sister.”

“Bianchi,” Reborn agrees. There’s a tug of tension at the corner of his lips, the barest hint of a smile as he gazes at the far side of the hallway. “She _was_ a great meister.”

“She made you a Death Weapon,” Gokudera says. The words come out harsh at his lips, drag to more vicious intensity than he intended to give them; he has to fight himself back to calm, has to struggle to regain control over his tone. “Didn’t she?”

“She did.” Reborn sounds perfectly calm, as if the harsh edge of Gokudera’s words are rolling right off the smooth black line of his coat. “She was an excellent partner.” He tips his head back, fixing his gaze on the ceiling over them as if it holds far greater interest for his attention than the conversation he’s having with Gokudera. “Do you know what made her such a good meister?”

Gokudera frowns. “She was strong.”

“No,” Reborn says without missing a beat. “It was that I could trust her.” He lifts a hand to the edge of his everpresent fedora and pulls the brim down so it casts a shadow across his face. “There’s nothing more important than trust in a partnership.”

Gokudera’s jaw sets, his chest tenses with a pressure nearly as bad as the pain in his hands. “Are you trying to say Yamamoto and I don’t _trust_ each other?”

“No,” Reborn says. “The opposite.” He cuts his gaze sideways from under the brim of his hat without pushing the shadow of it up and off his face; in the dark his eyes shine like flecks of the night itself. “Despite what I or anyone else may think of your abilities as a meister, it’s your weapon’s opinion that matters most.” His gaze slides away again, returning to that fixed point on the wall. “And Yamamoto has nothing but praise for you.”

Gokudera’s forehead creases, his mouth pulls onto a frown. “When did you even _talk_ to him,” he demands. “Has he been gossiping about…” and then his words trail off, and all the tension in his expression eases at once as the implication of Reborn’s words sinks in.

“I wouldn’t say gossiping,” Reborn muses. “But the medication is making him a bit chattier than usual, certainly.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Gokudera blurts, and he’s scrambling to his feet in a rush, lunging forward off the floor and towards the weight of the door keeping him from the inside of the infirmary. He’s ready to do whatever it takes to gain entrance -- he’ll throw a punch with his broken hand at Reborn’s face, if he has to -- but the Death Weapon makes no attempt at all to stop him, just watches Gokudera while the other fumbles with the door handle for long, unbearable seconds. He can’t get his fingers where he wants them, can’t hook his hold around the lever; finally he just uses the force of his elbow to unfasten the latch, and then the door is coming open and Gokudera is toppling forward and into the room as quickly as the door gives way.

There are several beds lining the wall of the infirmary, most of them made up with tidy white sheets like they’re waiting to offer comfort to the next patient in need. One even has the curtains drawn around it to speak to the presence of an occupant inside, someone allowed to linger in the space while Gokudera was relegated to wait outside. But Gokudera doesn’t care about the empty beds, and he doesn’t even care about the drawn curtain speaking to another presence; his attention is all for the bed closest to the door, and the occupant lying propped up against a heap of pillows in the middle of it.

Yamamoto doesn’t look well. His usual suntanned health has been stripped away from him, lost somewhere in the spill of blood that so stained Gokudera’s hands and the forest floor where the other fell; he has an IV in one arm and his other hand resting slack across his stomach like he lacks the strength to hold it up. He’s leaning hard at the support of the pillows behind him, his whole body slanting backwards against the resistance they offer, and when he turns his head to look at Gokudera his cheeks are pale, his eyelashes are heavy as he blinks recognition. But his eyes are open, his gaze catching to visibly track the other’s movement, and as Gokudera stares at him Yamamoto’s mouth curves up at one corner, struggling into a smile no less sincere for how much of a visible effort it requires.

“Gokudera,” he says, and his speech is a little slow, a little slurring over the edges of the consonants, but his voice is the same as his smile, warm and sweet as if they’re in their living room, as if Gokudera has wandered out to see him on a lazy weekend morning instead of burst into the medical facility that has saved his life. “You’re okay.”

Gokudera stares in silence for a moment. His mouth is open, his thoughts are full; but he can’t find words for the emotion in his head, can’t figure out how to frame his feelings into any kind of coherency. Yamamoto blinks at him, the gold of his eyes briefly obscured by his lashes before them come clear again; and his smile goes softer, twisting at the corner into something faintly uncertain as his forehead creases, as his lips shift.

“We didn’t finish the mission,” he says, as if Gokudera is thinking about the mission at all, as if Gokudera cares in the least whether they claimed the Kishin soul in question or not. “Sorry, Gokudera.”

Gokudera blinks. “What--” he starts, and then he has to stop, because his throat is flexing tight and he can’t force the words he wants past the knot at the back of his tongue. He blinks again, trying to clear the haze from his vision, and then he struggles into speech, pushing words over his tongue even as they break and shatter over heights of feeling in his throat. “What are you _talking_ about, you don’t--” He lifts his hand to rub at the burn behind his eyes; but there are bandages around his fingers, and a brace around his wrist, and he can’t find a clear spot before he blinks and his eyes overflow to spill damp across his cheeks.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, and he ducks his head to let his hair fall before his face, gasping an inhale as his chest knots and his shoulders tighten on unformed emotion. “You had me so _worried_.”

“Ha,” Yamamoto says, his voice as soft as Gokudera’s ever heard it. “Sorry.”

“Yeah,” Gokudera chokes. “You should be” and he’s moving forward over the gap between them before Yamamoto can give back a too-gentle answer, striding over the distance while his vision blurs into tears he can’t hold back and his breathing catches on sobs he can’t resist. Yamamoto takes a breath, and lifts his free hand as Gokudera comes in towards him, and Gokudera ducks his head in closer, tipping forward to weight his forehead at Yamamoto’s shoulder while he shuts his eyes and gasps for breath against the soft white of the hospital gown they’ve put the other in.

“Aww,” Yamamoto hums at his hair. “It’s okay, Gokudera, you don’t have to cry.”

“I’m not crying,” Gokudera insists as his breathing drags into sobs and his tears soak through the thin cloth of the gown to stick to Yamamoto’s skin. “Shut up, baseball idiot.”

“Ha,” Yamamoto says. His hand ghosts against Gokudera’s hair, his fingers trail down to settle in against the back of the other’s neck. “Okay.”

With his bandaged hands a proper hug is out of the question; the most Gokudera can do is press his elbows close against Yamamoto’s waist and lean hard against the other’s shoulder. The angle makes his wrist ache and throbs pain in his fingers, and it’s hard to catch his breath with his mouth pressing close against the other’s shoulder; but then again, it can’t be very comfortable for Yamamoto to be bearing the whole of Gokudera’s weight atop his bandaged chest. But Yamamoto doesn’t so much as flinch, and Gokudera’s not about to let him go.

He barely notices the pain in his hands with Yamamoto’s fingers winding idly through the fall of his hair.


	15. Continue

“You’re going too fast,” Gokudera snaps, not for the first time since they left the Academy infirmary. “You’re supposed to take it easy, weren’t you listening to that part?”

Yamamoto tips his head to look over his shoulder at Gokudera, his mouth catching on the faintest hint of a curve. “I was listening,” he says without any ire on the words at all, with nothing but gentle calm in his voice. “I am taking it easy.”

“You’re all but jogging,” Gokudera tells him, pointedly slowing his steps further so Yamamoto has to ease his own pace or leave his partner behind entirely. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be sprinting marathons again in no time at all.”

“Haha!” Yamamoto laughs. “Sure” but he’s still watching Gokudera, his gaze is still soft on the other’s features. Gokudera can only stand to meet Yamamoto’s eyes for the briefest of moments when the other is looking at him like that; it’s too much for him to stand, he has to duck his head and let his hair fall in front of his face to shield the flush across his cheeks from Yamamoto’s attention. They walk in silence for a few moments, Yamamoto’s steps slowing to fall into easy sync with Gokudera’s; and then Yamamoto says “I really am okay,” in such a soft tone that Gokudera can barely hear the words. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“ _What_ ,” Gokudera blurts, lifting his head to scowl at Yamamoto next to him. “Who’s _worried_ , I’m not worried.” If Yamamoto laughs he’s ready to shout, if Yamamoto looks so much as skeptical Gokudera thinks he might even be able to muster the aggression of a shove; but Yamamoto just looks at him, his gaze fixed on Gokudera from under the dark of his lashes and his mouth still soft against that smile. It’s not fair for him to look like that, Gokudera thinks, not when Gokudera has no response for it but to close his mouth and feel his whole face glow pink with self-consciousness.

“Shut up,” he says past gritted teeth.

Yamamoto’s lashes dip, Yamamoto’s mouth tugs up higher at the corner. “I didn’t say anything.”

Gokudera huffs irritation. “I’m not _worried_ ,” he says again, and reaches out to close his hand around Yamamoto’s wrist so he can tug the other forward faster along the sidewalk towards their apartment. “Come on, if we go any slower you’ll collapse before we even make it in the door.”

“You were just telling me to slow down,” Yamamoto says, but it’s soft enough that Gokudera can pretend he doesn’t hear, and more importantly Yamamoto isn’t pulling his hand free of the other’s hold on his wrist. He’s letting himself be led, trailing in Gokudera’s wake without any real protest, and Gokudera’s chest might be tight and his face might be hot but the contact, at least, is a comfort, even if he would never in a hundred years admit it aloud.

They arrive to their apartment unscathed, in the end. It was only another two blocks, after all, and Yamamoto _does_ seem like he’s doing fine, even if Gokudera can’t help but look for signs of exhaustion on the first lengthy period out of bed Yamamoto has had in the last few weeks. He doesn’t falter in the even stride he’s maintaining next to Gokudera, doesn’t reach out to brace himself against the other’s shoulder; he doesn’t even sound particularly winded when they pause so Gokudera can fumble his keys out of his pocket and manage the front door. It’s slightly difficult to do one-handed, the more so with his mostly-healed fingers still aching with the last twinges of damage from their fight; but when Yamamoto says “Do you want me to do it?” Gokudera snaps “ _No_ ” without even giving the question thought. “I’m fine” and he is, the door is coming open and he’s leading Yamamoto through and into the entryway without any further delay.

It’s strange to be back in the apartment. The space has gone all but unused over the last few weeks; Gokudera came back a handful of times to collect a heap of fresh clothes for himself and, once Yamamoto was freed from some of the array of IVs and bandages he suffered under initially, for his partner as well. But he didn’t spend more than a few minutes in the space, hardly even thought it worthwhile to turn on the light, and without anyone in it the whole familiarity of what has been their home feels strange and cold, like it’s forgotten how to accommodate the living warmth of people inside it.

“Ah,” Yamamoto sighs from where he’s standing alongside Gokudera. His wrist is still held in the other’s grip; he makes no attempt whatsoever to pull away. “It’s good to be back.”

Gokudera glances sideways at him. “Idiot,” he growls, and reaches to turn on the lightswitch without letting go of Yamamoto’s arm. “There’s nothing here that you didn’t have at the hospital. There’s not even anything to eat, we’ll have to get takeout until we have time to go for a shopping trip.”

“It’s fine,” Yamamoto soothes, as if Gokudera needs soothing. Gokudera glares up at him but Yamamoto’s just smiling down at him in that soft way again, his whole expression given over to the consideration like Gokudera’s the only thing worth looking at in the world. “I don’t mind takeout.”

“Of course you don’t,” Gokudera grumbles, ducking his head so he can fix his shoes with his attention rather than continuing to look at the way Yamamoto is watching him. He only pulled them on roughly at the infirmary; it’s easy enough to toe them off, he doesn’t even need to free his grip on Yamamoto’s hand to manage it. He still frowns attention at them, giving the simple task far more focus than it strictly requires; he can feel Yamamoto’s eyes lingering on him, can feel the weight of the other’s attention like a touch prickling heat at the back of his neck and all down his spine. “You don’t mind anything.”

“Ha,” Yamamoto hums, more a murmur than a laugh. “I guess not.”

Gokudera clears his throat and ducks his head to nod in the direction of the shoes still on Yamamoto’s feet. “Are you planning to stand here forever, or are you going to take those off and come in properly?”

“Hm?” Yamamoto shifts, looking to follow Gokudera’s gaze; his momentary distraction gives Gokudera a chance to lift his attention back to the other, to compose himself into the protection of a scowl while Yamamoto is blinking at his shoes. “Oh. Sure.” He’s even faster about it than Gokudera was, all but lifting his feet free of the loose-tied sneakers, and Gokudera wants to protest the possible danger of tripping with shoes so loose but his feet are carrying him forward of their own accord, bringing him farther into the apartment while he leads Yamamoto behind him by his unshifting hold on the other’s wrist.

“You’re supposed to get some rest,” Gokudera informs Yamamoto as he pulls him in the vague direction of the hallway, with some half-formed idea of getting the other into bed and relatively confined so Gokudera can stage a retreat to the kitchen and collect himself while he makes some kind of decision about food. “You should be lying down, you’re still hurt you know. Just because you’re _able_ to walk doesn’t mean that you _should_ be.”

“Okay,” Yamamoto says, with that easy, unresisting submission that Gokudera never quite knows what to do with. “Sure, Gokudera.”

“I’ll have to get something to eat,” Gokudera grumbles. “I’ll have them deliver it, you know I can’t cook and there’s nothing edible in the house anyway.” He makes a face and looks back over his shoulder. “Your milk’s all gone off, I’m sure.”

Yamamoto doesn’t look particularly concerned about this. Yamamoto doesn’t look concerned at all, in actual fact; he’s just gazing at Gokudera, his eyes soft and head tipped into consideration as his mouth clings to that same unthinking curve he had out in the street. Gokudera can’t help the way his feet stall motionless, can’t help the way his whole body goes still under the weight of Yamamoto’s gaze; it doesn’t make sense, that he stops so suddenly when Yamamoto isn’t even trying to hold him still, but his feet won’t move, and he can’t get himself to look away, even as he feels his cheeks start to heat with self-consciousness under the other’s attention.

Gokudera struggles for something to say, for some kind of voice to break the inexplicable spell Yamamoto appears to have worked on him just with the force of his attention holding to Gokudera’s features. “We’ll have to replace it all,” he manages, aware that he sounds the more inane for the way his voice is trembling and completely unable to steady it or find better words to offer. “It’s stupid to even keep milk in the house. Who likes milk that much anyway?”

Yamamoto’s mouth tugs up higher at the corner without pushing aside the soft attention in his eyes. “Dunno. Me, I guess.”

“God,” Gokudera huffs. “You’re such an _idiot_ ” and he’s reaching out, because he can’t _not_ reach out, not when Yamamoto’s hair is catching over his ear and falling dark against the collar of his shirt. Gokudera’s fingers skim warm skin, his touch curls in against Yamamoto’s hair, and Yamamoto is capitulating to his touch as fast as it lands, his shoulders tipping forward and his lips parting and his whole body making an instant surrender of itself to the weight of Gokudera’s fingers in his hair. Gokudera’s breath catches, his heart speeds in his chest, and in front of him Yamamoto is ducking his head over the few inches of difference in their height, Yamamoto’s forehead is coming in to skim against the fall of Gokudera’s hair. When he sighs an exhale Gokudera can feel the rush of heat against his mouth, can feel the thrum of almost-sound in Yamamoto’s throat like it’s echoing in his own.

“Stupid,” Gokudera says, and his hand is fitting at the back of Yamamoto’s neck, his fingers are spreading out to catch and brace against the warmth of the other’s skin against his own. Yamamoto’s hair is very soft against his fingertips; he can feel the extra weight of a too-long-delayed haircut tangling against the ache in his knuckles, catching against his skin like it’s trying to hold onto him, or just trying to press as close as possible against the contact he offers. “You’re supposed to be lying down and resting.”

“I can rest,” Yamamoto tells him obediently, before lifting his chin to ghost his mouth against Gokudera’s. It’s only glancing friction, just a moment of contact against the other’s lips; Gokudera’s the one who makes a sound in the back of his throat and lifts his own head to turn the feather-light contact into a true kiss, with his hand at Yamamoto’s neck to brace the other in place. Yamamoto smiles against his mouth, his lips curving on happiness even as they fit to Gokudera’s, and he’s still smiling when Gokudera can think enough to let him go so he can finish speaking. “I’ll lie down on the couch, it’ll be fine.”

“You won’t be as comfortable,” Gokudera tells him without loosening his hold at Yamamoto’s neck. “You barely even fit on the couch, your legs are too long.”

“It’s be fine,” Yamamoto soothes. His fingers slide under Gokudera’s hold, his hand comes up to interlace with the other’s fingers. Gokudera didn’t even notice Yamamoto drawing his hand free of Gokudera’s grip on the other’s wrist. “I like the couch, it’s cozy.”

“Yeah,” Gokudera says, his voice a wall of skepticism even as he presses his fingers between Yamamoto’s and presses to steer the other backwards towards the living room and the couch under discussion. “You just want to watch your dumb baseball shows.”

“Haha,” Yamamoto laughs against Gokudera’s mouth. “Not really.”

“Yeah?” Gokudera tightens his hold at Yamamoto’s hand, pushing to turn the other to the side so he can maneuver him around the end of the couch. “Why do you even care where you are, then?”

“Because,” Yamamoto says, and his hand is coming out to catch at Gokudera’s waist, his fingers curling gently against the other’s hip into a brace a moment before he lets himself topple backwards onto the support of the couch. Gokudera is pulled in Yamamoto’s wake, stumbling forward in an attempt to catch his balance that requires him to throw out a hand to brace himself at the back of the couch before he falls right atop the other boy in front of him; but Yamamoto doesn’t appear at all discomfited by this near-miss, his smile doesn’t so much as flicker as he blinks up at Gokudera over him. “I can be closer to you if I’m out here.”

Gokudera blinks hard, his thoughts scattering for a moment so all he can do is gape at Yamamoto smiling up at him. “Oh,” he says, his voice sounding soft and strangely weak in his throat; and then, as he struggles himself back into composure: “That’s...that’s stupid, it’s not like I can’t just come in anytime you need me even if you’re in bed.”

“I know,” Yamamoto agrees without any hesitation. “But it’s easier out here.”

“Stupid,” Gokudera tells him, as Yamamoto’s hand slides in against his waist and Yamamoto’s fingers tighten to brace his balance steady so Gokudera can slide his knees in around the other’s hips, so he can lift his hand from the back of the couch and replace it at the soft of Yamamoto’s hair instead. “That’s stupid.”

“Mm,” Yamamoto hums, his smile going wider as his lashes flutter. “Mmhm.”

“You’re stupid,” Gokudera tells him, drawing his hand free of Yamamoto’s so he can catch the other’s head between both his hands and stroke the weight of dark hair back and away from Yamamoto’s face. Yamamoto’s lashes dip, his head falls back against the support of the couch behind him; his whole expression is slack with warmth, the dark of his lashes are falling to shadow out curves against his cheeks. It makes Gokudera’s heart ache, turns his mind around a corner to sincerity, and when he continues it’s with more honesty than he intended, an offering of inner monologue he didn’t expect to spill from his lips pulled from the soft surrender of Yamamoto’s expression. “I can’t believe you went and got yourself hurt to protect me.”

“I’m your weapon,” Yamamoto says, as if it’s as simple as that, as if there’s no question in his head about the decision he made to sacrifice himself in defense of Gokudera. “That’s what I’m supposed to do.” He opens his eyes, gold-washed hazel coming into focus on Gokudera’s features; his gaze is just as soft now as it was in the entryway, as it was in the street, as it always is anytime he looks at Gokudera. “That’s what weapons do for their meisters.”

Gokudera blinks hard. He knows the words, he’s heard them in class the same as Yamamoto, has even read them on the pages of the textbook he’s sure Yamamoto has never even opened. It’s different to hear them in the soft resonance of the other’s voice, different when they sound so heavy with sincerity at the soft part of Yamamoto’s lips; they tense in the back of Gokudera’s throat, close off the ease of his breathing until it’s hard to fit an inhale inside his chest, hard to find voice for any kind of a coherent response. So he offers the next best thing, and says “Shut up” in a tone that only quivers a very little bit and makes Yamamoto huff into a laugh in the moment before Gokudera leans in to enforce the order with the weight of his mouth against the other’s.

It’s only a short-term solution, but by the time Gokudera pulls back again, he’s completely forgotten what it was he wanted Yamamoto to stop in favor of focusing on what he wants the other to _continue_ doing at some length.


	16. Opportunity

“What do you think they’re calling us in for?” Yamamoto asks as he trails Gokudera up the near-endless stairway that leads to the front of the Academy. “Maybe it’s about our last mission.”

“Doubt it,” Gokudera scoffs. “Our last mission was _fine_ , they have nothing to complain about there. We did it exactly by the book.”

“Mm,” Yamamoto hums agreement. He doesn’t even sound winded, even though Gokudera can feel the ache of the climb pressing against his thighs and trembling in his calves the way it always does, no matter that he makes it on a daily basis. “Maybe they want to congratulate us on a job well done!”

Gokudera tips his head to give Yamamoto a flat look over his shoulder. “You’re too optimistic,” he informs the other before looking back to watch the heavy pace of his feet against the stairs below him. “There’s nothing to congratulate. We did our _job_ , there was nothing special about that last mission at all.”

“Maybe it’s a new one, then,” Yamamoto suggests with hardly a breath of hesitation before changing tack. “To be more of a challenge.”

Gokudera huffs a laugh without any humor under the sound. “After we fucked up the last _challenge_ so bad?” he asks. “Why would they want to give us a second chance at all?”

“To prove ourselves,” Yamamoto says immediately. He takes a pair of steps in a rush, all but skipping up them to catch up to Gokudera’s deliberate pace; when he tips in it’s to bump his shoulder against Gokudera’s, to angle his smile down at the other’s face even though Gokudera is maintaining a fixed frown at the stairs in front of them. “We’re students, we’re not supposed to do everything perfectly on our first try.”

“Some people do,” Gokudera grumbles. “I _want_ to.”

“I know,” Yamamoto says, his voice going soft and gentle like he’s trying to soothe Gokudera back into calm. Gokudera would protest this -- he _is_ calm, he’s perfectly composed, there’s no need for Yamamoto to adopt that condescending tone with him -- but Yamamoto’s fingers are slipping around the angle of his wrist to urge his hand free of his pocket, and Yamamoto’s hand is pressing in against the loose curl of his fingers, and Gokudera’s intended protest fades to distraction as Yamamoto winds his touch against the other’s. “We’ll be great next time, I know we will.”

“You can’t _know_ that,” Gokudera informs him, and tightens his hold on Yamamoto’s hand to punctuate this claim. “Don’t be stupid, baseball idiot.”

“Haha,” Yamamoto smiles. “Okay, Gokudera.” From the way he’s smiling he seems to feel he’s won some kind of a victory, never mind that he’s just surrendered to Gokudera’s demands; it makes Gokudera frown, suspicion prickling up the whole length of his spine, but Yamamoto just smiles back at him until Gokudera huffs resignation and turns to look back to the Academy coming into view at the top of the stairs.

“It doesn’t make a difference anyway,” he declares, stepping up onto the courtyard at the front of the school with his legs thrumming relief at finally ceasing the upward climb they’ve been suffering for the last several minutes. “We’ll find out what they want soon anyway.”

“Yeah,” Yamamoto agrees, capitulating without any hesitation to Gokudera’s statement, and he falls into pace with the other with as much ease, even though Gokudera is sure the greater length of the other’s legs could let him settle into a noticeably longer stride than the one they’re adopting. Gokudera frowns at the idea, thinks about speeding up; but Yamamoto is smiling when he glances up at him, looking absolutely and entirely content to follow Gokudera’s lead, and Gokudera huffs and looks away to focus instead on finding their way through the maze of Academy corridors.

The room they’re looking for isn’t one of the main classrooms. Gokudera could tell that from the name alone, with the floor designation he’s never heard of before and the location bearing a name rather than the numbers for the usual classes. He’s relatively familiar with the structure of the school -- it’s easier to wander around to find a quiet corner to eat lunch between classes than to bear the effort of that climb any more than once a day -- but he still has to pause before the map at the front entrance and frown at the details of it before he can determine where they’re going. It’s on one of the middle levels, the strange ones offset from the larger classrooms by half-sized flights of stairs and hallways with ceilings so low they seem ready to brush the dark of Yamamoto’s hair; the placement alone is enough to tighten Gokudera’s frown at his lips, to set a crease at his forehead to match the concern at his mouth. This is looking more and more like an administrative conversation, and if he can think of no complaints for their last mission he can invent more than enough for previous ones. Maybe it takes months to work through the disciplinary process; maybe this is to discuss the mission Gokudera thinks of every time he catches a glimpse of the dark-healed scar cutting across Yamamoto’s back or feels the ache in his own fingers healed but still sensitive to cold weather and oncoming storms. Maybe they’re going to send him to remedial meister lessons, maybe they’re going to throw him out, maybe they’re going to take Yamamoto away and reassign him to--

“Ow,” Yamamoto laughs, and Gokudera realizes he’s been clutching desperately hard at the other’s hand in his, digging his fingernails in tight against the set of the other’s knuckles as if to hold onto him physically against the shadowy possibilities unfolding in his head. “Gokudera, are you okay?”

“Shut up,” Gokudera snaps rather than answering, and eases his hold with a monumental force of effort. He doesn’t pull his hand free of Yamamoto’s, though, even as they draw to a stop in front of the door unlabelled with anything but the name on the summons they received for this meeting. “We have to pay attention.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is as bright as if they’re outside in the clear air of the day, as if he doesn’t feel the pressure of the situation bearing down on him the way Gokudera does. “But there’s nothing to pay attention _to_ , Gokudera!”

“Be _quiet_ ,” Gokudera says as he reaches for the handle of the door to push it open. “There _will_ be, I need you to let me _focus_.” He’s looking back over his shoulder, scowling the words in response to Yamamoto’s smiling attention; it’s not until there’s a gasp, and a “Gokudera-kun!” that he jumps and startles to actually look at the occupants of the space.

It’s not just a meeting for them. There’s over a half-dozen people already in the room and arrayed around a table dark and heavy enough to merit far older faces than those that surround it. There’s Tsuna, of course; he’s the one who called out in the first surprise of recognition, and who’s still gaping shock from the far side of the table. Reborn is standing in the corner rather than seated in a chair, the shadows around him casting his whole person into silhouette; at the end of the table there’s Hibari, lounging in his seat like he’s as comfortable as he has ever been, with his ever-silent weapon partner Kusakabe alongside him, and on the other side of the table one of the girls from their class next to an older boy with short-cut pale hair that Gokudera can’t remember ever having seen before. It’s a mismatched group even at a glance, and Gokudera and Yamamoto’s entrance makes it no better; Gokudera frowns confusion at the group in front of him, stopping in the doorway with Yamamoto still hovering just at his shoulder.

“What are _you_ doing here?” he demands of the room at large.

“Ah,” Tsuna says, cringing back in his chair in that apologetic way he hasn’t been able to shake even after months of working with a Death Weapon as his partner. “We were told to come. I was, at least.”

“I got an extremely urgent message this morning!” the strange boy says, at a volume that makes Gokudera flinch back as if from a blow. At the end of the table Hibari huffs, wordless irritation clear all across his face; Gokudera supposes that’s answer enough all by itself.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, and comes farther into the room so he can approach two of the empty chairs against one side of the table. “You’re saying we’re all here and no one has any idea _why_?” Yamamoto reaches to pull a chair out for himself and settle into it, finally drawing his hand free of Gokudera’s so he can sit; Gokudera braces his palms at the back of the chair in front of him instead, leaning in over the table to scowl at Reborn silent and still in the corner. “Don’t try to tell me _you_ don’t know what’s going on. You’re a _Death Weapon_ , you must know everything that happens in the Academy.”

“Woah,” the strange boy says, and “Gokudera-kun!” Tsuna gasps in the first breathlessness of shock; but there’s no chance for Reborn to give any reply, barely time for him to lift his gaze to fix Gokudera with the dark of a stare before the door comes open again to admit a newcomer into the space.

“I’m so sorry I’m late!” the latest arrival pants. His glasses are lopsided, his red hair askew; his coat is misbuttoned, the weight of it off-center on his shoulders to undo any appearance of formality it might have been intended to grant. “I was trying to go over my notes but I fell asleep over them and by the time I woke up it was past time to be here.” He steps into the room and lets the door swing shut behind him; when he lifts a hand it’s to push his glasses into more order against the bridge of his nose, although this does nothing at all to remedy the rest of his appearance. He looks around the room, blinking owlishly at each of them like he’s trying to place names to faces; a rather difficult prospect, Gokudera assumes, since he at least has never properly met the other, though he thinks he might have caught a glimpse of that memorable hair in the halls between classes once or twice.

“You’re all here,” the newcomer sighs, sounding as relieved as if a death sentence has just been averted. “At least there’s that.” He steps forward to the end of the table, drawing back the chair at the opposite end from Hibari without any hesitation at all; whatever else he may be uncertain of, apparently he’s confident in his role as leader of this meeting. “We should get started, then. There’s no time to waste!”

“Wait,” Gokudera growls. His hands are tightening against the back of his chair with the force of the frustrated confusion rising in his thoughts; he doesn’t ease his hold, even when Yamamoto reaches up to touch his fingers gently against the outside angle of his wrist. “No time to waste for _what_? What are you talking about?” Hibari hisses from the end of the table, presumably irritated by this display of spoken communication, and across from them Tsuna is flinching like Gokudera’s words are bombs thrown into the space between them, but Gokudera is glaring at the boy at the end of the table and he’s not planning to back down until he gets some of the answers he wants. The newcomer’s eyes are wide, his mouth is soft; he looks a little like he’s going to cry, like the force of Gokudera’s words is too much for him to bear. Gokudera presses on. “Who _are_ you, anyway?”

The other blinks, hard, his expression flickering as if it’s a mask shifting across his features. For a moment his forehead creases, his mouth dips down, and Gokudera has the sudden, certain suspicion he’s about to burst into tears regardless of the audience he has for such a inappropriate show of emotion. Then his lashes lift, his chin comes up, and all the cringing stress in his features rearranges itself, reforming into set lines of certainty as hard as they are desperate.

“I’m Irie Shoichi,” the other says, and his voice is shrill and brittle but it has the force behind it of a man fighting for his life, of someone backed too far into a corner to have any options left but to fight as viciously as necessary for survival. “I’m a weapon, and on my last mission my meister fell victim to the Madness.” His jaw is set, his gaze steady in spite of the shine of tears casting his eyes to damp; he looks a little like he’s ready to beat his way through a wall if necessary, even if he does it while sobbing from sheer overwhelmed panic. “You’re the group the Academy assigned to help me get him back, and I’m the only one who knows where to begin.” When he brings his hand down on the table it lands with a _crack_ , the sound loud enough to make half the room jump and start Gokudera’s pulse rattling in his chest.

“You’re Gokudera Hayato,” Irie says, fixing Gokudera with all the intent focus those terrified eyes can grant. “You’re meister to one of the best weapons the Academy has had in recent years and you’d both be a major asset to my plan. Are you going to help me get my meister back, or do you want to leave now?”

Gokudera blinks. He feels a little like he’s been attacked by a kitten, like something small and soft and weak has suddenly grown to twice its size and is staring him down with absolute conviction behind its actions. It’s hard to think, hard to make sense of what’s happening; but one fact is clear, the opportunity that this presents is too obvious for him to turn aside from.

“I’m staying,” he growls, and he pulls his chair out at once so he can step around and drop into it. “Yamamoto won’t be any good to you by himself, will he?”

Irie just nods, his acceptance all but instant before he turns his attention back to the rest of the table; but at Gokudera’s side Yamamoto’s head turns towards him, the flicker of his smile brilliant enough Gokudera doesn’t have to turn to see it.

It doesn’t make a difference anyway. Gokudera doesn’t need Yamamoto to point out the incredible opportunity this is for them both to prove their worth to the Academy.


	17. Separate

It’s cold in the basement of the school.

Gokudera hadn’t counted on that. He should have, probably; but the awareness of his oversight is doing nothing at all to ease the tension in his shoulders or the shivering that is trying to clatter his teeth together at a volume loud enough to more than match the rhythm of several pairs of feet all hitting the stone floor beneath them at more-or-less the same time.

“It’s fucking freezing,” he grumbles, only half under his breath so Yamamoto striding along next to him will hear him. “Maybe this is all some plot to freeze us to death. How do we know he’s not in cahoots with his crazy meister?”

“We’ll be fine,” Yamamoto soothes, speaking in a far more ordinary tone and not lowering his voice even when Gokudera tips his head to glare at him sideways. “Do you want my jacket?”

Gokudera glances at the vest Yamamoto is wearing, at the eye-catching red of the fabric and the soft padding that promises warmth even beyond what body heat the clothing must be holding against the other’s chest. For the briefest of moments he can see it in his head, can imagine the give of the vest settling in around him as if to press the comfort of Yamamoto’s touch against his body, to warm all the blood in his veins with self-conscious happiness as much as with the added warmth of an extra layer of clothing.

“No,” he says, and looks away again. “My _arms_ are cold, not my chest. That’s a stupid design anyway, who even came up with the idea of a vest like that?”

“Okay,” Yamamoto says without any indication of stress on his voice at all. “If you’re sure.”

Gokudera growls. “I’m not going to wear my boyfriend’s clothes like some _girl_.”

“Mm.” Yamamoto takes a step in closer, the motion idle enough that it almost passes for unplanned, like he just accidentally happened to move near enough to bump his hip against Gokudera’s. “I think it’d look nice on you.”

Gokudera’s cheeks heat in complete disregard for the chill otherwise suffusing his body. “Shut _up_ ,” he hisses, looking sideways to glare up at Yamamoto. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye out for this supposed rogue meister?” He looks back to the cluster of other students in front of him, feeling his mouth curve down onto a frown of skepticism to match the forward hunch of his shoulders. “If he really _is_ down here at all. Why would anyone decide to come and spend their free time _here_ anyway?”

“He _is_ ,” comes a voice from the front of the group, the tone sharp and strained as the speaker tries to pitch his response to carry. Gokudera cringes -- he hadn’t realized his voice was loud enough to be heard -- but Irie is still speaking, rushing over his words with the anxious tumble of speech he’s offered in response to any question put to him since their first meeting. “I know it seems unlikely but you have to trust me. I know my meister, I know he’s down here somewhere.”

“ _Why_?” Gokudera demands. “Why would he come down here in the first place? Why would you _know_ he’s down here? How are we supposed to believe that you’re not just trying to get us all killed?”

“I’m _not_ ,” Irie says, his voice breaking high and shrill, and he stops dead at the front of the line, pivoting on his heel to glare at Gokudera near the back. Hibari keeps walking, moving right past Irie’s hunched shoulders without any sign of hesitation, and the pale-haired upperclassman -- Ryohei, Gokudera has learned, with his sister Kyoko from Gokudera’s class as his weapon partner -- shouts something incoherent and jogs forward after him, but the rest of their group goes still, Yamamoto and Tsuna both looking from Gokudera to Irie as if they’re expecting a fistfight to break out. Gokudera’s face heats, his jaw sets on self-consciousness; but Irie doesn’t seem to notice the audience at all for the trembling-lip intensity he’s turning on Gokudera.

“We used to come down here,” he says in a rush, still speaking at that breakneck pace like the words are spilling from his chest with no chance for him to stop them. “It was fun to wander around the basements, Byakuran would set up scavenger hunts and then go with me while I figured out the clues.”

Gokudera blinks. “ _Scavenger_ hunts? Seriously?”  
“ _Yes_ ,” Irie snaps. “You asked. This was our place, there was never anyone here but us so we could do whatever we wanted. We were down here every day in our first year.” His mouth is trembling worse now; when he lifts a hand to push roughly through his hair Gokudera can see him blinking back the threat of tears from his eyes. “It’s been years since we came down here but I’m sure this is where he would go. He’d remember, I’m sure of it. Byakuran never forgets _anything_.”

Tsuna clears his throat with careful intention. “Irie-kun--”

Irie makes a sound of irritation. “ _Shoichi_.”

“Ah, yes,” Tsuna backtracks, rocking back on his heels as he waves his hands through an apology. “Sorry, sorry!” It takes him a moment to collect himself; by the time he does Irie has let his hand fall back to his side, has reached across with his free arm to clutch at the angle of his elbow like he’s trying to form a protective wall in front of his body. “Shoichi-kun.” Tsuna clears his throat again, coughing like he’s inhaled wrong, or like he’s trying very hard to delay what he’s going to say. “Your meister...Byakuran. He’s...I mean--”

“He’s fallen into Madness.” That’s another voice, from the shadows behind Tsuna’s shoulders; Tsuna jumps at the sound of Reborn’s tone, tripping and nearly falling as he pivots to face his human-form weapon partner. Reborn isn’t looking at Tsuna; his gaze is fixed on Irie, his eyes as steady as if they’re a pin meant to lock the other in place over his trembling legs. “There might not be anything of him left to save.”

Irie’s face goes white, all the color draining from under his skin as he sets his mouth tight on itself, as he lifts his chin into the sharp angle of insistence. “There _is_ ,” he snaps. “There has to be. He’s my _partner_.” There’s a tension on the tone, a strain at the back of Irie’s throat that shudders uncomfortable self-awareness down Gokudera’s spine; he doesn’t look at Yamamoto standing next to him, doesn’t reach out to touch his fingers to the inside of the other’s wrist, but it takes a conscious effort on both counts.

“He was your partner,” Reborn says, his words the more savage for how calm they sound. “And if he’s not anymore?”

Irie’s expression twists, his forehead creasing as his mouth trembles. For a brief, horrible moment Gokudera thinks he’s going to cry, thinks their ostensible leader is going to collapse into tears right in front of them; but then Irie’s chin comes down, his hair falls in front of his face to shadow his expression, and when he speaks his voice is different, hard and certain as a wall, like cut diamond catching and shattering light into blinding fragments.

“Then _I’ll_ deal with it,” Irie says, and when he lifts his head it’s shadows behind his eyes, the heavy weight of certainty instead of the cringing weakness Gokudera had expected. “He’s my partner, even now. That makes him my responsibility.”

 _My fault_ , are the words clinging just under the surface of the ones Irie chooses. _He’s my fault_. It makes Gokudera flinch, shudders uncomfortable tension down the whole of his spine; but from over his shoulder:

“Good,” Reborn says, and he’s lifting a hand to tug at the brim of his perpetual fedora so it casts the whole of his face into shadow. “As long as you understand.” And he’s transforming, flickering into the haze of brilliant light that shifts his human form into the weight of the revolver Tsuna carries with more and more comfort, now, every time Gokudera sees him. Tsuna doesn’t even hesitate this time; he reaches out as soon as he sees the light, offering his open palm for the weight of the gun to smack against as Reborn finishes shifting.

“Gokudera,” Yamamoto says, and he has none of Gokudera’s hesitation about physical contact; his fingers are brushing against the fall of Gokudera’s sleeve, his touch urging the fabric higher until his thumb is weighting against the bare skin of Gokudera’s wrist. “Do you want me to transform too?”

Gokudera shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I don’t want to have to bother carrying you around until I have to. We’ll have plenty of time for you to transform later.” It’s very technically true, at least, even if Gokudera thinks he’d find the weight of a bat over his shoulder more comforting than otherwise at the moment; far more comforting is the weight of Yamamoto’s fingertips lingering against his wrist and the focus in the gaze turned on Gokudera alongside him. With Irie’s words still hanging in the air, Gokudera wants to have Yamamoto reassuringly human for as long as he can get away with it.

Irie turns back around to begin leading them down the hallway again, huffing frustration and speeding his steps when he sees that Hibari and Ryohei are entirely out of sight down the dark of the basement halls. Tsuna, Gokudera, and Yamamoto are left to follow in his wake, all three of them walking much closer together than they need to.

“What do you think we’re going to find?” Tsuna asks in a low tone, looking around them with as much anxious stress as if he thinks Irie’s erstwhile meister is going to appear out of the walls or materialize in the darkness over their heads. “Will we be able to help him?”

“We’ll find him,” Gokudera says, the words rough on certainty at his lips. “That’s our job, after all.”

“We’ll save him,” Yamamoto says with that easy, unhesitating cheer that always sounds so convincing, as if he knows what he’s talking about even when he’s speaking from nothing more than the gut instinct he swears by. “It’ll be okay, Irie’ll bring him back safe!”

“Optimistic baseball idiot,” Gokudera growls, glaring up through the fall of his hair as Yamamoto laughs aside the force of this insult. He lifts his hand away from Yamamoto’s lingering touch to grab at the other’s arm instead and push hard enough to propel him forward. “Go tell our leader to slow down, we can’t keep up with him if he’s running.” It’s not like the message needs to be carried -- Irie is only a handful of feet ahead of them, even with his speeding pace -- but Gokudera needs to shake the contact of Yamamoto’s fingers from his skin, if only for the mental space to refocus himself on what they’re doing instead of what he would do if he were in Irie’s position, what he would do if it were his partner they were down here to find.

“Okay,” Yamamoto agrees, as compliant to Gokudera’s wishes as ever, and he drops into an easy jog, his longer stride eating up the distance between the trio and Irie ahead of them. Gokudera watches him go, his attention trailing the other as Yamamoto falls into stride alongside Irie and starts talking with the easy grace he always brings to conversation, and from alongside him Tsuna sighs over an exhale.

“I can’t imagine what it must be like for Shoichi-kun,” he says. When Gokudera looks back to him Tsuna’s gaze is fixed on Irie’s shoulders, his whole expression drawn into obvious sympathy as he watches the other. “He really is ready to do…” Tsuna’s confidence in his speech wavers visibly, his words die to silence at his lips before he can swallow himself back into some measure of composure. “Whatever he has to, isn’t he?”

Tsuna looks almost as pale as Irie did, as if the empathetic emotion in him is pressing against him with as much weight as Irie’s self-declared sense of responsibility. It makes Gokudera frown, sends his thoughts reeling for some kind of comfort; but he’s never been any good at offering sympathy, or reassurance, not in a world that has always seemed rather more heartless than otherwise to him. He looks ahead of them, at Yamamoto laughing over something warm enough that it has even Irie’s mouth turning up onto a tentative smile; and he huffs a sigh, and reaches for what words he can find.

“It’ll be okay,” he says. “We’re all in this together, we’ll find a way to make it through.” His optimism sounds weak even in his own ears; the words might be borrowed from Yamamoto, but his tone sounds uncertain even at his own lips, like he doesn’t really believe the sentences he’s offering as comfort. He frowns, sets his shoulders, tries again. “We’re too good to lose to something like this.” That’s better, it feels more natural on his lips than his closer approximation of Yamamoto’s reassurance; he lifts his head higher, feels his voice gaining traction as he continues. “We’re the Academy’s star meisters, that’s why we were entrusted to this mission. Of course we’re going to succeed.”

Tsuna heaves a breath next to Gokudera, relief audible in his tone. “Right,” he says. When Gokudera looks at him his shoulders are a little straighter, his gaze is steadier; even the pace of his footfalls has gained some weight, like his steps are solidifying as he gains self-confidence. “We’ll win, and we’ll bring everyone home safely together!”

Gokudera is watching Tsuna as the other speaks, his mouth tugging itself into a grin at this unexpected display of confidence from the other; it’s charming to see, inspirational all by itself, like watching Tsuna come into greater comfort is enough to ease some of Gokudera’s stress secondhand. It’s distracting, even if only for a moment, and it’s because of that distraction that it takes Gokudera a moment to notice the rumbling.

It’s a deep-down sound, almost more a sensation than an audible noise. Gokudera feels it humming through his feet, vibrating up through the bones of his legs to thrum against his spine and set his teeth close against each other. He stops moving, looking up to frown at the ceiling overhead; at his side Tsuna is hesitating as well, but Gokudera is too distracted by his own confusion to pay the other much attention. Up ahead of them Irie is only just stopping, like he’s only hearing the sound now; but Yamamoto is looking up in mirror of Gokudera’s reaction, his head tipping to the side as he frowns at the ceiling.

“What _is_ that?” Gokudera asks, and Yamamoto looks back to him, his forehead creasing as he frowns.

“I think--” he starts, and then the world lurches under them and whatever else he was going to say is lost to the bone-shaking thunder that fills the hallway. Gokudera shouts protest, bringing both hands to clap over his ears, but his yell is lost to the sound, more than drowned out by the noise that seems to permeate the air itself. The world is shaking; but it’s not the world, it’s the _walls_ , the ceiling overhead is trembling against its supports, the floor is vibrating in time with it, and Gokudera is hit with a wave of panic, adrenaline lancing through him to sweep aside all rationality, all thought, everything but the sudden, reflexive reaction of horror.

“ _Yamamoto!_ ” he shouts, and his voice can’t possibly be audible over the sound but Yamamoto looks at him anyway, his eyes going wide as his gaze meets Gokudera’s. Gokudera reaches out for him, instinct trying to span the distance between his body and Yamamoto’s; but he only manages to take a step before there’s a spill of dust from the ceiling, and a tumble of motion, and the bricks outlining the roof overhead crumble to fall into the gap between them. Gokudera shouts again -- “ _No!_ ”, he thinks, or some similar refusal of reality -- but the ceiling is collapsing in on them, masonry crumbling to fill the gap between his hand and Yamamoto’s before he can bridge it. He has a brief moment to see Yamamoto’s face -- wide eyes, parted lips, slack shoulders -- and then Yamamoto tips his head just to the side, and _smiles_ , and Gokudera’s vision gives way to a rush of dust as the ceiling tumbles down to cut them off from each other.


	18. Disjoint

Gokudera doesn’t know how long it’s been.

His sense of time has given way along with his grasp of direction, his internal compass as thoroughly askew as everything else about the situation seems to be. He feels like he’s been wandering for hours, as if he’s spent the whole of his life in the shadows of the Academy’s basement, as if he might spend whatever few hours he has left here, moving aimlessly from corridor to corridor in search of something he won’t find, something he can barely put a name to.

“It’s the Madness,” Reborn said, after Tsuna had managed to urge Gokudera back from clawing uselessly at the heap of rubble that separated them from the rest of the group and left Gokudera in the pointless role of a meister without a weapon. “It’s getting stronger the farther we go. Even with the collapse of the ceiling, we should be able to find our way based on that alone.”

“ _Great_ ,” Gokudera had snapped. “Just go whichever direction makes us feel worst, is that it?” But his words lacked any bite, and he couldn’t muster the willpower to even glare at Reborn when the weapon glanced in his direction; he just ducked his head over his bruised hands and pressed his lips tight together, as if silence is likely to be any real comfort for the absence aching so much more sharply in his chest than anything else.

His hands are still painful. Gokudera can feel the damage he’s left across the palms, the raw ache at his fingertips pressing uncomfortably close against the gloves currently weighting his hands to the possibility of combat at his sides. That was Reborn’s idea too: “You’ll be more buffered if you have a weapon,” he had said, and turned to take the lead down the hall without waiting for either agreement or protest. Gokudera had opened his mouth to snap back a response to this, to drag through the shuddering panic trying to take over his limbs and find some measure of anger instead; but Tsuna had touched his arm, his hand brushing at Gokudera’s sleeve with a careful touch strangely reminiscent of Yamamoto’s, and when Gokudera had turned to look at him Tsuna was giving him a smile, the shape of it shaky and struggling but no less sincere for that.

“Reborn can wield himself if he has to,” he says, sounding more relieved than anything else. “I don’t mind. It’d be easier to be in weapon form anyway.” He had grimaced at that, folding his arms over his chest protectively as he looked up at the weight of the ceiling bearing down over them. “Something’s wrong down here, can you feel it?”

 _Yeah_ , Gokudera wanted to say. _We’re lost in a labyrinth under the school with the wrong number of people and the possibility of running into a madman around any corner. It takes a real genius to feel the stress of_ that. But Tsuna was still frowning, his whole expression taut with unhappiness, and in the end Gokudera couldn’t find that anger after all, and he had just held out his hand in surrender to Tsuna’s transformation into his weapon-form gloves. The gloves felt strange, heavy and oddly weighted as if he’d never worn them before, as if the previous experience he had working with Tsuna had evaporated entirely to leave him dealing with the equivalent of a complete stranger; but Tsuna heaved a sigh in the back of his head, and said _it’s so much easier like this_ , and there was some comfort to that connection if nothing else.

They’re very quiet as they proceed down the corridor. Reborn is taking the lead without hesitation; it’s easy to keep up with him, but he barely pauses at turnings and doesn’t look around at all to make sure the other two are still following him. It irritates Gokudera -- what if they fell behind, would Reborn even notice, would Reborn even _care_ \-- but holding onto the burn of anger is almost impossible, it seems to slip free of his mental grasp as quickly as he finds it. Gokudera’s never had that problem before; anger is always quick to rise to his demand, whether it’s precise, focused rage at someone with him or general irritation with the troubles of the world in general. But now it’s like the heat inside him has faded, like the emotion Gokudera has always thought of as a bonfire has faded to a single flickering candleflame, until he’s left shivering in himself even though the cool of the air isn’t nearly enough to account for the reaction.

 _Are you okay?_ Tsuna asks, the other’s voice tentative instead of bright and certain the way Yamamoto’s always is. _Is the Madness wavelength starting to get to you?_

 _No._ Gokudera thinks the word clearly, with all the edges of it sharp and clean in his mind; the fact that he’s uncertain about its actual accuracy doesn’t come through at all. _I’m fine._

 _I think I can feel it_ , Tsuna confesses. _It’s like I’m remembering everything I ever did wrong all at once._

Gokudera’s spine prickles. _Just ignore it_ , he says, the more harshly for the way he can feel his own self-confidence eroding like sand before an ocean wave. _It’s just the Madness trying to turn you on yourself, you can ignore it if you focus._

 _Yeah,_ Tsuna says, sounding relieved. _You’re right. You’re not feeling it at all?_

Gokudera’s not so sure anymore. Gokudera’s not sure of anything, when he really thinks about it; his hands are bruised and aching inside the weight of an unfamiliar weapon, he’s following a Death Weapon who doesn’t seem to care about him through a maze of passageways he’ll never be able to escape alone. His partner is out there somewhere, wandering through corridors in some twisted echo of Gokudera’s own plight; or maybe he’s made it to the meister they’re meant to find, with the almost-Resonance that Irie seems to be relying on to lead him through the darkened pathways. Maybe he’s in a fight right now, trapped in his fragile human form without a meister to wield him, without Gokudera to wield him; or maybe he _is_ transformed, maybe there’s someone else holding onto him and swinging him through the air with easy grace. The thought twists Gokudera’s stomach with panic more than the jealousy he half-expected; there’s something terrifying about the idea of someone else working with Yamamoto, as if Gokudera’s entire sense of identity is crumbling out from under him just at the possibility. _He’s_ struggling to even work with Tsuna, someone he knows and has worked with before; but what if Yamamoto is teaming up with Ryohei, or Hibari, or even Irie, what if he’s finding it easier to work with another meister than it is with Gokudera? He doesn’t have experience with any other meister partners; there’s no guarantee that Gokudera is the best fit for him, no particular reason why Yamamoto would need to keep working with him if he finds that to be untrue after all.

Gokudera’s breathing catches in his chest, his vision starts to blur. What if Yamamoto doesn’t want him after this, what if he loses his weapon partner to someone better, someone more suited for the position? It’ll leave him weaponless, leave him unmatched; there’s no place for him at the Academy without a weapon, there’s no use for meisters who aren’t even able to hold onto a partner. Surely Yamamoto’s elegant grace would be easy for someone else to adjust to, surely the fluid strength of his movement would be simple to wield; and Gokudera will be left behind, will be left _alone_ , with no place for a failure in his father’s home and no place for a solo meister at the Academy. He’ll be alone, _again_ , he’ll be all the way back to where he began, and what’s the _point_ of all his effort if it can be so easily swept aside, if a series of coincidences can so--

 _Gokudera-kun_ , Tsuna’s voice comes, so sharp on concern that it manages to break past even the grip of existential crisis Gokudera is locked in. _Did you hear that?_

 _What?_ Gokudera says, more snappishly than he intends. His stomach still feels like it’s in freefall, his chest is still tense until he feels like he’s choking. _Hear what?_ And then it happens again, a faint ricochet of sound off some dark-shadowed wall, and Gokudera freezes in place where he stands. For a brief, horrifying moment he thinks it’s the rumbling again, that the earth will shift under them and the weight of the brick over their heads will come tumbling down to crush them down into claustrophobic agony; but the sound isn’t low enough, it’s too clear for it to be that bone-rattling hum he heard before. Gokudera takes a breath, ready to offer a warning to Reborn ahead of him, and: “We’ve got company,” Reborn says without turning around. “Be ready.”

 _Company?_ Tsuna’s voice is quavering even inside Gokudera’s head; Gokudera can all but see the other wringing his hands together, even without a proper human form to complete the gesture. _What does that mean?_ The strain on his voice says he knows already, says that the question is more rhetorical fright than anything else, and Gokudera doesn’t answer. He isn’t sure he could find coherency to his voice anyway, doesn’t know what he’d say even if he could; he feels cold, like his skin is turning to ice from the inside out, like panic is reaching to wind around his heart and still him into immobility while Reborn continues down the hallway without hesitating. But his feet keep moving him forward, carrying him step by inevitable step even as he wonders if this next will be the moment when anxiety overrides action, when he finally goes still with the panic coursing through him and is unable start moving again. He can hear Tsuna breathing in the back of his head, the raw edge on the other’s inhales speaking as clearly to his own struggles as Gokudera’s own, but there’s no comfort in the sound; there’s just the weight, claustrophobia pressing down atop them as if to crush them to floor, to steal their breath and consciousness and leave them nothing but the panic, the terror of the unseen like a child’s fear of the dark turned into monsters that are all too real. Gokudera is feeling lightheaded, is gasping dizzy breaths with every step forward he takes; and then “ _Tsuna!_ ” comes a shout, distant and echoey but still clear for all that, and Gokudera’s mind goes blank with lack of comprehension. “ _Death gun!_ ” louder, this time, gaining strength as the speaker approaches. “ _Octopus head! Where are you?_ ”

 _Oh_ , Tsuna says in Gokudera’s head, and “Oh,” Reborn says in front of him, both of them in such perfect time with each other that they make a stereo effect of their relief. Gokudera still can’t calm, can’t remember how to take a breath enough to fill his lungs; and then there’s the sound of footsteps, the weight of feet landing hard against the flat of the floor, and Ryohei rounds the corner so fast he nearly runs straight into Reborn before he can stop himself.

“Ah!” he shouts, in the same too-loud voice that carried his calls so clearly to the ears of the others. “Found them!”

 _Ryohei!_ Tsuna chirps in Gokudera’s head, and then, as the weight of the gloves on Gokudera’s hands dissolves into the glowing light of transformation, “Hibari-kun!” as the meister comes around the corner like a delayed shadow to Ryohei’s entrance. Tsuna is landing on his feet in the hallway, moving forward without any hesitation at all; but Gokudera is looking at the newcomers, his attention skipping over Ryohei and Hibari and Kyoko transforming out of the boxing gloves that she makes when her brother is wielding her and to the back, where Irie’s red hair is just coming into view at the edge of the corridor. Irie’s mouth is open, his eyes are wide behind the shine of his glasses; but there’s a shadow behind him, greater height and darker hair, and all Gokudera’s attention slides away from everything else as Yamamoto comes into sight.

Yamamoto doesn’t see him right away. His gaze flickers to Reborn, standing like a segment of the shadows around them given the shape and presence of a human; and then to Tsuna, reaching out to clasp at Irie’s hand while he gasps relief that everyone else is okay and together. And then his head lifts, his gaze shifts to the back, and he looks straight at Gokudera staring at him.

Gokudera doesn’t know what expression he has on his face. He doesn’t know why he’s not moving. He wants to move forward, to throw himself into the relief of the reunion and the comfort of physical contact and friendly smiles. But he’s trapped, locked in place by his own frozen body, until all he can do is stand staring blankly at Yamamoto whole and standing and unharmed before him. If Yamamoto were like Gokudera, Gokudera thinks they’d stand there forever, trapped into stillness by their own breathless shock at the sudden reunion even after such a brief time. But Yamamoto’s not like Gokudera -- he never has been -- and Yamamoto is moving, sliding forward from the crush of everyone else with that unconscious grace that used to so grit irritation into Gokudera’s jaw, that used to so crease his forehead with anger. But now he’s not frustrated, he’s not angry in the least, and Yamamoto is stepping forward with those ridiculously long legs of his, and he’s reaching out, and then his arms are closing to catch Gokudera in the tight grip of a hug, and all Gokudera’s breathing rushes out of him at once before he can even make an attempt to restrain it.

“ _Gokudera_ ,” Yamamoto says, his words as warm against Gokudera’s hair as his arms are around the other’s shoulders. His vest is very soft where the pressure of his body is crushing it against Gokudera’s chest; Gokudera can hear the crinkle of the fabric shifting as Yamamoto’s hold on him tightens. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Gokudera doesn’t know what to say. His mind is empty, his thoughts are blank; but his arms are moving on their own, his bruised hands are coming up to close into fists at the back of Yamamoto’s vest, and when he tightens his hold Yamamoto doesn’t resist the urge of Gokudera’s grip, just leans in in immediate surrender to the press of the other’s arms pulling him closer.

Yamamoto fits perfectly in the angle of Gokudera’s arms.


	19. Reverberate

Irie takes the lead again as soon as the reunion is complete. He’s the only one who goes largely unaffected by the rejoining of the two groups; some of the truly horrified white eases from his face, at least, but other than that there’s no trace of calm anywhere in his expression or body. He waits until Yamamoto has shifted into bat form, and until Kyoko and Reborn are back in their weapon forms and in their respective meisters’ hands; and then he says “Okay, come on, we don’t have any more time to waste!” and is turning to retreat back into the depths of the basement without waiting for anyone else’s response. Gokudera wants to snap a retort to this -- he almost does, relief or not -- but Irie has his arms crossed tight over his chest, and his shoulders hunched in so far he looks like he’s expecting a blow to land on him at any moment, and Gokudera doesn’t have the heart to lash out at someone who looks even more stressed than Tsuna usually does.

They make for a quiet procession. It should be enough to placate Hibari’s apparent allergy to friendliness, although he indicates no sign of gratitude or pleasure at this turn of events; he just falls into pace a few steps ahead of Irie, his weapon still settled in against his grip where it’s been since they left and his forward stride as deliberate and unflinching as before the roof collapsed on them. Between Hibari’s certainty and Irie’s anxious energy the rest of them are all but jogging to keep up, but if Tsuna and Ryohei aren’t going to complain Gokudera’s hardly about to be the first to speak up. He sets his jaw, and settles Yamamoto up over his shoulders, and drops into the easiest jog he can find for himself to keep pace with the two leading the rest of them.

It takes longer than he expected. Gokudera has no sense of how long they’ve been down here; he was losing his grasp on time passing even before the floor shook and the roof collapsed, and the intervening time apart from the others was a minor eternity of pure panic that left him no space at all to worry about how long it had been since he last saw the rest of the group. It could have been hours that they’ve been down here by now -- for all Gokudera knows the night could be well underway, could be winding its inexorable way forward towards the morning and the daylight that comes with it. They’d have no sense of it down here, no way to know that the sun is glowing bright against the front of the Academy weighting over their heads; there’s just the dim around them, the walls bearing down over them as if with the threatening reminder of what happened that unmeasured span ago, and the sound of their breathing catching and tangling like too-fragile proof of their continued existence against the oppressive force of their surroundings.

 _It’s okay_ , Yamamoto says against the back of Gokudera’s thoughts, his voice so startlingly clear that Gokudera jumps and nearly shouts before he can close his mouth on the spill of shocked noise. _We’ll make it back out of here fine._

 _I know that_ , Gokudera tells him. _Obviously we’ll be fine, we’ve been fine every time before. Why would this be any different?_

 _It won’t be_ , Yamamoto says with instant, easy capitulation, with the surrender that comes so quickly it doesn’t give Gokudera’s irritation chance to gain traction against it. _I just wanted to remind you_.

 _I don’t need_ reminding, Gokudera snaps, _I know we’ll be fine_. It _does_ help, just to say it firmly in the space of his own head; he can feel his shoulders ease a little from their stressed hunch, can feel his body relaxing into something closer to the unhurried lope Yamamoto would be maintaining were he the one carrying Gokudera and not the other way around. Yamamoto doesn’t comment on this, either coherently or by that burble of laughter that’s as good as _I told you so_ , and Gokudera doesn’t offer any defensive protest; it’s enough to be able to take a deep breath again, to feel like something approaching himself in spite of the oppressive situation around them.

“We’re almost there,” Irie says suddenly, without giving any warning for the brittle clarity of his voice against the walls around them. The words sound a little like a shout, a little like a sob; Irie’s tone is so strained it makes Gokudera stumble, makes his own shoulders tense in expectation of some true horror just in answer to the other’s stress.

“How do you know?” Tsuna asks from just over Gokudera’s shoulder. He sounds like he’s struggling for breath more than skeptical; when Gokudera glances back his hair is damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead, his mouth is open on the gasp of his inhales.

Irie must not hear the distinction of Tsuna’s tone; or maybe he’s just too tight-wound to react to anything except the building panic in his own head. “I just _know_ ,” he snaps, his voice breaking like he’s collapsing under the weight of the need to defend himself. “I can _feel_ him, I know that sounds stupid and I don’t care, it’s just _true_.”

 _It’s not stupid_ , Yamamoto says in Gokudera’s head, and “It’s not stupid,” Tsuna offers in almost perfect stereo. Gokudera glances at Tsuna, frowning discomfort at the weird echo he’s hearing, but Tsuna’s gaze is distant, like he’s not really seeing anything around him, and Gokudera realizes he must be listening to Reborn in his head. “It’s something--Reborn says it’s not impossible, if you’ve Resonated a lot.” There’s a pause, a moment while Tsuna goes silent to listen to whatever else the death weapon is offering to him. “You get used to the connection, you can start sensing each other.”

“Great,” Irie says. He does not sound comforted. “All the more reason why I have to deal with this _now_ , before I go just as crazy as he has.”

“I don’t think it--” Tsuna starts, but he never gets to finish offering what he doesn’t think it is. He’s in the middle of his sentence when there’s another rumble, like the first one that brought the roof crumbling down over them; but longer, this one, lower, vibrating through the floor and thrumming against the back of Gokudera’s teeth. Gokudera’s chest tightens, his breath catching as he looks up to the ceiling; but they’re lucky, this time, or maybe it’s that the basement is better constructed here, because there’s not so much as a shiver of dust, even as the sound goes on and on and on like it’s trying to replace the ambient sound of the world in Gokudera’s head.

“ _Shit_ ,” Irie blurts, and then he’s moving, dropping into a full-on sprint forward before anyone else has time to react. He’s nearly to the next crossing before Hibari collects himself enough to move, closely followed by Ryohei; by the time Tsuna shouts unheard protest and Gokudera growls himself into action Irie’s tumbled around the corner, moving so fast he slips and falls but keeps going forward even as he struggles to his feet again. The other three bolt around the turn, all of them moving with completely different approaches and all three faster than the other two; but Tsuna is quicker than Gokudera expected, and Gokudera’s heart is pounding too hard on sudden panic to let him go slowly, and they round the corner hard on the heels of the other three.

The basement opens up, here. Gokudera hadn’t realized there would ever be anything but the weight of the walls and ceiling pressing down on them; but the space unfolds into a room with wide walls and a faraway ceiling far more in keeping with the style of the rest of the Academy than what they’ve been in before. There are talismans attached to the walls, the paper of them rustling like wings in the wind around them; because there is a wind, like a vortex, like a tornado caught within the confines of the walls around them, and in the midst of it something glowing, bright and blinding until Gokudera’s eyes start to tears before he can blink and turn away from it.

“ _Byakuran!_ ” That’s Irie, it must be; the voice is too raw for it to be anyone else, too edged in hysteria to be any of the backup pairs that have come with him. The rumbling is continuing, is humming into Gokudera’s veins like it’s trying to make a home for itself inside the span of his body; and the wind too, gusting at the useless talismans to rip them from the walls and pulling at Gokudera’s hair to whip across his face and steal whatever attempt at sight the achingly bright light has left him with. Gokudera feels dizzy, like the whole world is veering out from under him, like gravity itself is trying to buck him off the support of the earth under his feet; in the back of his head Yamamoto is yelling but Gokudera can’t hear him, can’t make out the details of the other’s voice past the roar of the wind in his ears. He should be able to, he thinks distantly, the sound should be in his head and not affected by the environment he’s presently in; and then “Of course you can’t,” comes a voice, clear and cool and composed, and Gokudera’s blood goes cold in his veins as he recognizes the distant judgment on that tone.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he blurts, and he’s turning on his heel to face back the way they came, to squint past the tears blurring his vision as if he can make out the details of the figure he knows must be there behind him, with that voice too immediately recognizable to be anyone else. “Father?”

“I’m disappointed in you, Hayato.” The voice is coming from everywhere, it’s echoing in Gokudera’s ears loud enough to drown out even the endless thrum of vibration from the floor under his feet. Gokudera can’t see, he can’t make out any of the details of the darkness of the passageway for the brilliance of the illumination filling the main room; but he _knows_ the figure must be there, must have travelled to the Academy and been following them for inexplicable reasons of his own. “Months as a meister and this is the best you have to offer?”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Gokudera shouts, pitching his voice as loud as he can to carry past the whip of the wind around him and the rumbling, so low and deep it sounds as if the whole of the basement is going to collapse atop their heads. His voice is swallowed by the sound, carried away until all that remains is a shrill, tinny wail and the ache of effort in the back of his throat. “I’m doing _great_ , what the fuck do you know about anything?”

A sigh, the sound soft with resignation and still strangely clear, more clear even than the murmur of noise in the back of Gokudera’s head, like someone is screaming at such a distance that the words go mute and indistinguishable. “Your sister would have done better.”

Gokudera’s blood goes cold. It’s like ice is chasing down the beat of his heart, like winter suddenly sweeping through his veins to chill him to immobility. “ _Fuck that_ ,” he says, and he takes a step forward, back towards the corridor they came from as his hands curl into fists at his sides, as his shoulders tense with the expectation of a fight. There was something against his palm, some weight keeping him from the furious hurt curling his fingers in against his skin, but it’s gone as quickly as he thinks of it, the associated flash of light lost to the brilliance overilluminating all the space around them. “You don’t have _any_ idea what I’ve done, you don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t _care_ what happens to me at all, everything I’ve done I’ve done by _myself_ , _for_ myself, you--”

“ _Gokudera_ ” and it’s another voice, a different voice, so close to Gokudera’s ear that he can hear it even over the rush of the wind. Gokudera swings an arm wide, ready to shove the newcomer back and away, can’t they see he’s _busy_? But fingers close on his wrist, a steady hand clasps against his arm like a bracelet, and when Gokudera hisses and looks back to pull himself free it’s Yamamoto standing there, his eyes wide and hair wild and mouth drawn down into a frown of concern. He’s staring at Gokudera, his whole focus given over to the other, and it’s his hand at Gokudera’s wrist, his fingers pressing so close against the other’s skin.

“Gokudera,” Yamamoto says again, more softly so Gokudera more sees the words than hears them. When Yamamoto ducks in towards his ear the wind catches his hair with Gokudera’s, winding them together as if it’s trying to make a single entity of them. “There’s no one there.”

“What?” Gokudera recoils from the other’s voice, looking back to glare at the corridor; but there’s no movement, no oncoming shadow, no trace of the person to go with the voice he’s certain he heard. He frowns hard, his jaw setting as confusion sweeps out into his mind. “But I’m sure I--”

“Hayato” from behind him, this time, and Gokudera twists in shock, his gaze jumping up to track the source of the new, feminine tone. The light flares, searing his eyes and drawing a hiss from his throat; and then there’s the flash of a smile, white teeth in a pale face, and when he blinks his vision to clarity he can make out a form amidst the halo of white, can see the sunbright glow of pale hair and the arms outstretched like wings to bear the owner aloft in the midst of the impossible whirlwind forming in the space. Gokudera’s sure he’s never seen the other before, not even in a glimpse in the halls of the Academy; but the figure looks at him, and opens its mouth, and when it laughs it’s with his sister’s voice, the resonant peal of Bianchi’s tone spilling from lips Gokudera has never seen before. The effect is nauseating, _wrong_ in a way that curdles Gokudera’s stomach and reaches his hands out to clutch for stability against Yamamoto; but Yamamoto is holding him up already, has his hand closed to a desperate grip at the bottom edge of Gokudera’s shirt and his other still bracing close at Gokudera’s arm.

“What the _fuck_ is that?” Gokudera shouts, unable to look away from the glow of the form haloed in light above them. His eyes are watering, his stomach is churning, but there’s terror gripping him now, the raw fear of a small animal caught in the stare of some enormous predator and hoping for a miracle to save it.

“Byakuran.” Yamamoto’s words come close against Gokudera’s ear; he has his head ducked down, his forehead all but pressing to Gokudera’s shoulder as if to protect his vision. “We found him.”

“Oh my god,” Gokudera breathes. He would look away if he could; there’s nothing comfortable about the figure hovering above them, nothing pleasant about the burn of too-much light seething pain into eyes adjusted to the dark of the basement around them. But he’s frozen, his gaze locked in place until he can’t look away, can’t even dip his lashes for the relief of a blink, and he’s sure this was a mistake but he can’t back out now, it’s too late, it was too late the moment they came down into the labyrinth of these darkened corridors. “He really is insane.”

“ _Byakuran!_ ” That’s Irie, his voice pitching shrill against the rush of the wind around them, but Byakuran doesn’t look at him; his head tips up instead, his mouth opening in another peal of laughter that seems to echo against the walls around them, that reflects and fractures into a thousand voices, a thousand tones shrieking to cacophony. Gokudera can hear his sister still under that sound, and his father, and his best friend from when he was three, and the giggly girl who partners with Kyoko in their usual class; and dozens more, hundreds more, like all the people he has ever met or might ever meet in a thousand different lifetimes are compressed into the shift of Byakuran’s throat on amusement.

“ _Sho-chan_ ,” Byakuran says, and the noise runs down Gokudera’s spine to fix his feet to the floor, to blow the breath clear out of his body. “ _Have you come to save me?_ ” His tone is mocking, as sarcastic as the almost-affection on the nickname; as his head comes down Gokudera can see the smile creasing his face, can see the way it’s blowing the color of his eyes out to oversaturated brilliance like a flashbulb caught in the moment of illumination.

“No,” Irie says, “We’ve come to stop you” and there’s an _explosion_ , a gust of sound and heat and light that finally shuts Gokudera’s eyes and turns his head away in instinctive cringing from the blast. Yamamoto makes a sound at his shoulder, his fingers tightening on Gokudera’s shirt; Gokudera would swear he can feel his hair singeing, would swear all his exposed skin is crisping like he’s spent too long in the light of the summer sun. The wind stops, the noise stops; the quiet is deafening, for the first heartbeat, the absence of motion so startling Gokudera can’t remember how to breathe normally for a moment. He opens his eyes, twists to look back; and it’s just as he looks that Irie steps forward, and extends his hand, and touches his fingertips to the cheek of the figure standing in front of him. Gokudera just has time to realize that it’s the same person as before -- Byakuran, stripped of the wind and his light-shaped wings and the vibrato of that uncanny voice, made just another meister by their absence -- before there’s a _crack_ , and a flash like a lightning bolt, and Irie and Byakuran both are eclipsed in a surge of coruscating light. Gokudera gasps an inhale, feels the air crackling like ozone against the back of his teeth; and then the light is gone as quickly as it came, and Gokudera is left blinking spots from his vision to make sense of the scene in front of him.

Tsuna is at one side, the glowing revolver in his grip upraised and braced between both hands; his eyes are wide, his lips parted, his skin as pale as if he’s the ghost he looks to have seen. Byakuran is on the ground, collapsed into a boneless heap with no sign of movement or that eerie light spilling from him; and Irie is standing over him, his hand still outstretched with smoke rising from his fingers, looking like he’s on the verge of collapsing to join Byakuran on the ground.

There’s a moment of complete silence. Even Ryohei doesn’t have anything to say into the quiet. Finally it’s Tsuna who closes his mouth, and swallows hard, and gives voice to the question clear in Gokudera’s mind. “Is he…did I kill him?”

Irie’s hand drops to his side, Irie’s head dips forward. “No,” he says, that one word like a sob in his throat, and he does collapse then, his knees folding under him to drop him to the floor alongside the shape of his fallen meister. “If he dies, it’ll be my fault.”

There’s no room for argument in the miserable certainty of his tone, and with the electrical tang of whatever Irie did still hanging in the air, Gokudera can’t find the possibility of protest in him anyway.


	20. Intent

The sun is rising by the time they emerge onto the top of the stairs of the Academy.

Their number is fewer. Irie is back in the infirmary with Byakuran; whatever struggle he’s already been through tonight, his own sense of responsibility isn’t ready to be done with his meister yet. Reborn vanished once they climbed out of the basement, presumably to report whatever his opinion was on the expedition back to the Academy headmaster; and Hibari all but evaporated the moment there was enough space for him to do so, taking a sharp turn upon their emergence and disappearing around a corner in spite of Ryohei and Tsuna calling his name. Ryohei even went jogging after him, shouting something about Hibari being ‘extremely deserving of gratitude!’; but Tsuna looks as haggard with exhaustion as Gokudera feels, and whatever he might have to say to the other student apparently isn’t enough to motivate him to actually chase him down.

“Well,” is what he says instead, sighing himself into resignation as he looks back to Gokudera and Yamamoto next to him. “That’s done, at least.”

“Yeah,” Gokudera says. His mind is working slow, his thoughts coming to him through a haze of distraction; it’s hard to remember how to speak when he’s spent the last hour finding his way back through the darkened basement with only the press of Yamamoto’s hand in his to guide him. “Hopefully we won’t have to go save any more escaped meisters today, at least.”

Tsuna huffs amusement as tired as the rest of him. “I hope so.”

“Do you want company back to your apartment?” Yamamoto asks from Gokudera’s side. He sounds far more present than Gokudera feels or Tsuna looks; Gokudera doesn’t know if it’s a function of him being in weapon form for the brunt of the Madness attack that has left him so chipper, or if it’s just his own natural resilience that has brought him back to himself with such speed. For once he’s not even irritated by the thought. “We could walk you back if you want.”

Tsuna shakes his head and waves a hand to brush aside the suggestion. “I can find my way home without getting too lost,” he says, his mouth tugging on that familiar self-deprecating smile. “Besides, I should probably check with Reborn to make sure he doesn’t have any crazy training plan on the books for today.”

“ _More_ training?” Gokudera asks. “Haven’t you had enough work already today?”

Tsuna laughs weakly. “I hope he thinks so,” he admits. “But I’ll wait for him just to be sure. See you guys back in class tomorrow, I guess.”

“Sure,” Gokudera says, and “See you then!” Yamamoto chirps, lifting his free hand to wave a farewell for the other. Tsuna smiles and returns Yamamoto’s wave in form if not in energy; and then Gokudera turns away towards the front of the school and tugs at Yamamoto’s hand in his to urge the other to trail after him.

They walk through the streets in silence. It’s too early yet for the city to be quite awake; what noise there is is soft yet, the scuff of a door opening as someone steps out to take out the trash or the squeak of a bike being wheeled out for some early-morning commute. Usually Yamamoto is a constant source of distraction, of laughter and commentary and constant chatter whether Gokudera wants the conversation or not; but maybe he’s more tired than he seems, or maybe their Resonance is lingering through the contact of Gokudera’s fingers at his wrist, because he stays as perfectly quiet as Gokudera’s exhausted thoughts could wish, subsiding to obedient peace as he follows the lead of the other’s hand in his. Gokudera keeps his gaze on the street before them, keeps his head ducked down to lock his focus on the simplicity of the next few steps instead of anything farther out than that, and he keeps his thoughts firmly tied to the present moment: the warmth of the sunlight against his hair, the smell of the city stirring to life around them, the fit of Yamamoto’s fingers between his own. He doesn’t think about the shapes the Madness conjured for him, or the way Yamamoto had smiled as the ceiling collapsed between them, or any of the infinite things that _could_ have gone wrong and didn’t. He doesn’t think about any of that the whole distance through the city to their apartment; and then they’re climbing the stairs, and Gokudera is reaching for his keys to unlock the door, and they’re both stepping forward and into the darkened space.

It feels strange to be back. They’ve only been gone for a night; Gokudera spent more time away from the apartment when Yamamoto was confined to the infirmary and he was waiting for his own body to complete the frustratingly slow process of mending his broken fingers and sprained wrist. But the shadows seem different, now, softer than they’ve felt before this morning, and when Gokudera lets his breath go as the door swings shut behind them his exhale catches onto the strain of relief in his throat, tensing until it sounds almost like a whimper as it spills past his lips.

From over his shoulder Yamamoto takes a deep breath in, like he’s filling his lungs with the familiar air of their shared space. “We’re home.”

Gokudera’s throat tightens. He can’t explain why he reacts the way he does to Yamamoto’s words; he was thinking the same, or close enough to the same to make no real difference in meaning. It’s just a simple statement of fact, so straightforward as to be nearly inane when given voice as Yamamoto has just done; and yet suddenly all the tension of the too-long night is rising in Gokudera’s throat, is pressing at his chest and weighting his tongue like it’s trying to choke him with a surge of unwanted tears. He blinks hard, feeling the burn behind his eyelids threaten to give away the emotion suddenly crushing against his breathing; and then Yamamoto says “Gokudera?” and Gokudera realizes he’s clutching too-hard at Yamamoto’s hand, that his fingers are digging in desperately against the spaces between the other’s knuckles.

“Shut up,” Gokudera says, throwing the words to cut off whatever comment Yamamoto might offer regarding the pressure of his hand and the force of the grip he can’t ease.

“Are you okay?” Yamamoto asks, because apparently he doesn’t understand spoken language, or maybe Gokudera never actually gave voice to those words at all; maybe they stalled in his chest alongside the knot of pressure trying to rise and choke him to silence where he stands. Yamamoto’s turning in towards him, his free hand is coming up to catch under the fall of Gokudera’s hair; his touch is unbearably gentle, when his fingers brush and skim Gokudera’s cheek. “You’re--”

“Stop _talking_ ,” Gokudera grates out, but he doesn’t wait for Yamamoto to listen to him this time; he’s turning as fast as he speaks, twisting to face the careful slide of Yamamoto’s fingers into his hair so he can turn his head up to scowl at the other, so he can reach out to clutch at the back of Yamamoto’s neck, so he can rock up onto his toes and press his mouth against the other’s. It’s a sudden movement, so abrupt Gokudera’s sure Yamamoto doesn’t have time to react; but Yamamoto must have been expecting it, or maybe he’s just always ready to surrender to this, because he’s tipping forward as instantly as Gokudera pulls him, his hand sliding to weight against the other’s shoulder as his whole balance comes forward in capitulation to Gokudera’s pull. His mouth is warm, his lips are soft, and all the tension in Gokudera’s chest is unfolding itself into a growl of satisfaction he can feel purring in the back of his throat as he presses in against the heat of Yamamoto’s lips.

They’re caught together like that for a moment, fitting their mouths together like they’re relearning the shape of the other; and then Gokudera drags his hand free of Yamamoto’s, and reaches up instead to make a fist in the dark of the other’s hair and pull him back by force.

“Idiot,” he says, sounding only a little breathless and all of that more than balanced by the way his voice has dropped into a dark, gravelly weight he could never achieve with anything less than the force of the aching want uncoiling itself into his veins. “Do you want to just stay in the entryway all day?”

Yamamoto blinks at him, his lashes moving as syrup-slow as his heat-dazed gaze. He looks stunned, like he’s struggling to understand language at all; Gokudera can see Yamamoto’s focus drop to his mouth, can see the almost-tip of the head that comes with it before the other can collect himself enough to draw his attention back to Gokudera’s eyes. “You kissed me first, I was just--”

“And we’ll never get to more than kissing if we stay here,” Gokudera snaps. He’s being unfair and he knows it -- he _did_ initiate this, after all, and Yamamoto has no reason to suspect he wanted more when he hardly knew himself -- but Yamamoto’s lashes dip heavy to shadow his eyes for a long breath of shocked reaction, and when his mouth comes open it’s on a huff of heat instead of anything more coherent. It makes Gokudera’s skin go hot, makes his breathing catch against that strange friction at the back of his throat, but: “Take your shoes off,” is what he says, still with his voice rumbling over those uncharted depths, and when he pushes Yamamoto back the other stumbles before he can catch himself with a hand at the door. He doesn’t protest that either -- he’s still staring at Gokudera with his eyes knocked dark by want -- but Gokudera doesn’t wait for the other to collect himself. He has his own shoes to work off, more by kicking roughly at them than anything else, and his overshirt to shed and drop atop them, and then he’s moving away and out of the entrance while Yamamoto is still struggling with the zipper of his vest.

“Ah,” Yamamoto says as Gokudera steps past him, and he reaches out to catch his fingers at the sleeve of the other’s t-shirt. “Wait, Gokudera--”

“I’m just going to the couch,” Gokudera protests, but he doesn’t argue very hard; it’s easier to step back in over the gap between them, to submit to the unvoiced urging of Yamamoto’s fingers and close the gap so Gokudera can reach up and wind his hands into the soft dark of the other’s hair. Yamamoto is parting his lips for a kiss before Gokudera even has his mouth against the other’s, is shutting his eyes as he drops his hands to work at his vest again, and Gokudera is more than happy to stand at the edge of the entryway with his fingers wound in at the back of Yamamoto’s neck while he kisses the other to distraction as Yamamoto tries to get his outerwear off. Yamamoto drops the vest, struggles for freedom from his shoes as he reaches for Gokudera’s shoulder; his balance goes for a moment, his mouth curves on a breathless huff of amusement, but Gokudera doesn’t protest because Yamamoto is following him without waiting, stumbling forward across the span of the floor while Gokudera backs them in the vague direction of the couch. His shins hit the edge of the furniture, he reaches out to grab against the support of the back, and then they’re falling, toppling back with something vaguely approximating grace to drop them both onto the support of the cushions beneath them.

“ _Oh_ ,” Yamamoto gasps as he lands hard on his hip alongside Gokudera, his balance slipping to deposit him almost into the other’s lap. One of his hands is back at Gokudera’s shoulder, urging against the fall of the other’s hair; the other has settled at the pale blue of Gokudera’s shirt, Yamamoto’s fingers spreading wide to brace him at the angle of the other’s waist. “Gokudera.”

“Yeah,” Gokudera says, aware that he sounds utterly inane and unable to do anything to reconstruct his voice into something reasonable; and he’s pushing, and they’re both falling, Yamamoto to land against the soft give of the couch behind him and Gokudera to land on top of him. Yamamoto’s breath rushes out of him in a huff, his inhale knocked free by his impact with the support under him; but Gokudera doesn’t wait to give him a chance to find his breath again. He’s moving as fast as they land, fitting his knee between Yamamoto’s legs to brace himself at the couch and pressing a hand down against the cushions under the other’s shoulders so he can lift himself up, and then Yamamoto’s blinking up at him and Gokudera’s breathing is catching fast in his chest, and he has the whole of Yamamoto laid out before him.

It’s not like they haven’t made out before. Kissing inevitably turns to heat, building on itself the longer they continue; on more than one occasion they’ve both ended up panting for air and pressing as close against each other on the narrow space of the couch as they can fit. But that’s always incidental, reflexive instead of intentional; this, with Gokudera blinking himself into clarity and Yamamoto gazing up at him from his sprawl across the cushions, is nothing if not deliberate. Yamamoto’s eyes are wide, his lips are parted on the rush of his breathing; he looks like he’s melting across the cushions, like all the strength in his body has given way to surrender itself to Gokudera. His shirt is caught just over the angle of his hip, the hem of it slipping up to show a half-inch of suntanned skin, and Gokudera is sure, in that exact moment, that he can do anything at all to Yamamoto, can press his fingers up under the other’s shirt or slide his knee between the other’s thighs or lower his mouth to press against the flutter of Yamamoto’s heart beating so fast in his throat, is sure that Yamamoto will give in completely to whatever Gokudera wants them to do. The idea is heady, intoxicating as rich wine, and Gokudera’s chest tightens against the force of it, his breathing knotting against that strange pressure in his throat until his exhale comes out as a purring groan of anticipation.

“Yamamoto,” he says, and he’s reaching out, reaching down, pushing his fingers in and under the loose edge of the other’s shirt. Yamamoto’s eyelashes flutter, his stomach trembling against the friction of Gokudera’s touch; but Gokudera is moving without waiting for a response, is drawing his fingers across and sideways to find out the weight of denim forming the waistband of the other’s jeans. There’s the soft of thin elastic just over the top edge, the clinging closeness of boxers pressing near to Yamamoto’s hips; but Gokudera skips over that for now to catch his fingers at the button of Yamamoto’s jeans instead. Yamamoto hisses a breath, the sound of it soft with shocked heat in the back of his throat; and under Gokudera’s fingers, under Gokudera’s gaze, his jeans come open with the same easy capitulation Yamamoto is showing to Gokudera in everything else. The denim comes loose, there’s just thin fabric between Yamamoto’s body and the press of Gokudera’s questing fingers; and then, on a huff of an exhale that sounds as much like a whisper as anything else: “Gokudera,” Yamamoto breathes, his fingers tightening close against the back of Gokudera’s neck. When Gokudera looks up Yamamoto’s eyes are fixed on his face, his pupils dilated wide on the heady combination of the dim lighting and the heat of their breathing; but he’s watching Gokudera’s face and not his fingers, his attention is still holding together in spite of the friction of the other’s palm against him. “Are you sure?”

Gokudera’s throat closes up on him for a moment. It’s too much to bear, for a heartbeat of time; to have Yamamoto like this, spread out before him with pliant surrender in every line of his body, with his lips parted on heat and his lashes heavy with want and his whole self tremblingly anxious for Gokudera’s touch, and for him to still ask, as if he’s not sure, as if _Gokudera_ might not be sure. Gokudera can feel the pressure of it like a fist around his heart, clenching tight against the rhythm of his heartbeat like an echo of that moment of horrible panic in the basement, when there was an unscalable wall between himself and the curve of Yamamoto’s smile. But the wall is gone, the barrier removed, and when Gokudera struggles to fill his chest with a lungful of air his inhale is warm with the heat of Yamamoto’s body under his, like proof of the other’s presence enough to push away even the remembered panic of that moment.

“Of course I’m sure, you idiot,” he says, and then he leans in to press his mouth to Yamamoto’s and slides his fingers down to fit under the elastic of the other’s boxers.

Gokudera can feel the sound Yamamoto makes against his mouth. It’s a whimper, he thinks, or maybe a soft-edged moan far in the back of the other’s throat; it’s enough to speak to his own appreciation, as much as the helpless upward jerk of his hips as Gokudera’s fingers fumble into traction against the flushed length of him. Gokudera tips his weight forward without thinking in a reflexive attempt to pin Yamamoto to stillness beneath him, and the next shift of his fingers brings Yamamoto’s whole body arching up against him, like the other is trying to lift himself off the couch entirely just to be closer to Gokudera over him. Gokudera hisses satisfaction against Yamamoto’s mouth, curls his fingers in against the breadth of the other’s cock, and as he draws up in a rushed drag of friction Yamamoto’s head angles back against the cushions under them, his throat opening up on a groan Gokudera can feel run down the length of his spine to settle to heat at his hips.

“ _Oh_ ,” Yamamoto whimpers, and “ _God_ ” Gokudera blurts, and he’s moving again, any uncertainty in him melting away to the surge of heat running through him in answer to the sound of want breaking Yamamoto’s voice into a low range Gokudera’s never heard from him before. Gokudera’s knee digs in hard against the cushions of the couch, his fingers curl to make a fist of the soft underneath him; and he’s moving faster, falling back onto years of his own habitual pleasure to guide the rhythm of his movement. It must be different than what Yamamoto’s used to -- _Yamamoto_ is different than what Gokudera’s used to, the angle and the shape of him both an unforgettable reminder that this isn’t a chase for some simple relief late in another insomniac night -- but Yamamoto doesn’t seem to mind, or if he does it’s not enough to override his reaction to Gokudera touching him. His hands are pressing to Gokudera’s shirt, his fingers are pushing up into Gokudera’s hair; it’s like he can’t stop touching the other, as if he’s trying to ground himself against the form over him while the whole of his body surrenders itself to the sensation Gokudera is offering.

“Gokudera,” he gasps, choking off the syllables at the back of his throat as his spine curves, as his hips jolt up in some desperate attempt to push harder against Gokudera’s grip. “Please, I--” but Gokudera’s already tightening his hold, already speeding the movement of his hand, and Yamamoto’s voice fails into a shuddering groan that drops him back to his original position across the cushions, with his hands clutching at Gokudera’s shirt and his legs trembling against the support of the couch. He has one knee up, his thigh angled wide like he’s making an offering to Gokudera over him; the other is out straight, kicked into the open space of the living room as if to take up as much space as possible, as if the heat flushing Yamamoto’s cheeks so dark with pleasure is demanding he expand to fill the whole of the apartment with his presence. His lashes are dark, his mouth is open on the unvoiced shape of Gokudera’s name; and Gokudera can feel his whole body going tense with anticipation, as if Yamamoto’s orgasm is building against his own spine instead of trembling itself into existence behind the heat-hazed gold of the other’s half-lidded eyes.

“Fuck,” Gokudera growls, and the words topple from his lips, coherency spilling free from his mouth as quickly as he gives it freedom. “Come on, baseball idiot, I want to see you.” Yamamoto is gasping, now, his throat straining over the shudder of his breathing as his shoulders flex, as his legs shake; his whole face is flushed, there’s the damp of sweat collecting at his hairline to stick his hair to his forehead. Gokudera feels like he’s going to come apart, like he can’t breathe properly for how desperate his movements are going. “Come _on_ , Takeshi, let me _see_ you.” Yamamoto makes a weird sound in the back of his throat, like he’s trying to moan and inhale at the same time; his lashes are fluttering, his eyes so out-of-focus Gokudera can almost taste satisfaction against his tongue, as if he can see the cliff-face of want Yamamoto is balancing on.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says again, harsher and sharper as Yamamoto’s forehead creases, as his mouth opens on a whimper. “I want to see you _come_ ” and Yamamoto’s breath spills from him in a groan, his head tipping back against the cushions of the couch as his body arches up to press against Gokudera’s. He’s thrumming with tension, the whole of his body straining up for a moment of anticipation; and then he whimpers, a faint, fractured noise in the back of his throat, and his whole expression goes slack with heat as he comes. His lips part, his forehead smoothes, his throat eases, and Gokudera’s whole body shudders with answering heat, as if the sight of Yamamoto coming under the drag of his hand is enough to ratchet his own desperate want right to the edge of inevitability in itself. Yamamoto is flushed with warmth, his lips wet and parted on the desperate drag of his breathing and his eyes hazy and unfocused with the force of the pleasure rippling through him, and Gokudera has never seen anything so striking in all his life.

“God,” he breathes, what was meant as a curse turning strange and reverent in his throat as he voices it. Yamamoto’s lashes flutter, his vision coming back into focus with a visible struggle of effort; his mouth curves as he sees Gokudera properly, his lips curving up into a soft smile too immediate and too gentle to leave any doubt to its sincerity.

“Gokudera,” he says, so softly Gokudera’s name turns over on itself into something softer and sweeter than he ever thought it could be, than he ever thought _he_ could be. Yamamoto lifts a hand from his side, reaching out towards Gokudera’s shoulder; his touch just skims the edge of the other’s cheek, trailing against the set of Gokudera’s jaw like he’s appreciating the simple familiarity of it, like he’s revisiting the lines of the face that is surely nothing but mundane to him by now. “You. You’re.” Yamamoto huffs an exhale, the whole of it trembling like he’s easing back from that height of pleasure he ascended, and his smile pulls wider as his fingers slide down against the side of Gokudera’s neck. “I love you.”

Gokudera would swear he can feel his heart stutter, the skip of its regular pacing like it’s suddenly not sure how to continue in the basic necessities of living with Yamamoto’s voice around those words. “Shut up,” Gokudera says, because he doesn’t know what to say and that seems like the safest response, even if his voice trembles and threatens to break over the command. “I jerk you off once and you’re suddenly ready to get married?” Yamamoto’s lashes dip, his mouth opens like he’s thinking about actually responding to this, and Gokudera’s stomach drops with complete terror of what Yamamoto might say to follow that up, if he can offer a confession with such casual ease. He speaks fast, blurting words over whatever Yamamoto might say just to head off any similarly alarming statements. “If you think you’re going to get out of reciprocating…”

Yamamoto blinks. “No,” he says, so fast and so unhesitatingly that Gokudera’s stomach twists with guilt for even suggesting the possibility, even as the last-ditch defense mechanism it was in truth. “I want to get you off too, I just--”

“Well then you should,” Gokudera says, feeling his face burn with the demand under his words but still more willing to take this variety of embarrassment than the unknown terrors of emotional commitment that Yamamoto might offer unchecked. He tosses his head to shake his hair back from his face, struggling to find a tone of put-upon confidence enough for him to hide behind. “I’ve been patient already, if you don’t hurry up maybe I’ll just have to take care of myself.”

Yamamoto just looks at him for a moment. His mouth is soft, his lips eased out of that pleasure-soft smile; but he’s not frowning either, there’s no anger Gokudera can see in the lines of his face. He looks considering, like Gokudera’s some puzzle he’s contemplating; it makes Gokudera’s skin prickle, makes him feel like Yamamoto is looking right past his facade of aggressive confidence and the flush of his self-consciousness and down to something else, something deeper, something Gokudera isn’t even sure he knows himself. It feels a little like the beginning of Resonance, like Yamamoto is reaching for that moment when the boundaries between them blur and meld into a single entity; it makes Gokudera feel dizzy, unmoored, like he’s losing his grip on himself and can’t regain traction with the distraction of Yamamoto’s eyes on him. He’s going to say something, he thinks, he’s opening his mouth to give voice to something he hasn’t planned and can’t predict; but then:

“No,” Yamamoto says, “I want to” and he’s moving at once, bracing an elbow underneath himself to push upright as his fingers at Gokudera’s neck tighten to hold the other steady for the weight of a kiss. Gokudera’s lashes dip reflexively, his vision surrendering immediately under the press of Yamamoto’s mouth to his, and Yamamoto is still moving, is sitting all the way up and tipping Gokudera back over the balance of his heels instead of kneeling over Yamamoto’s hips. Gokudera’s sense of the world tilts, his balance teetering until he has to grab at Yamamoto’s shoulder without thinking of the sticky mess across his fingers and wrist; but Yamamoto’s arm is coming up around his waist, the joint press of his arm and the set of his fingers at the back of Gokudera’s head steadying the other as he tips backwards, and Gokudera is still gasping a breath of shock when his shoulders hit the arm of the couch behind him, the furniture catching to steady him as Yamamoto leans in closer.

“Gokudera,” Yamamoto says, the other’s name coming warm and purring against Gokudera’s mouth. Gokudera catches a breath, trying to collect himself from the sudden change in his position, but Yamamoto isn’t waiting; he’s leaning in already, ducking his head to press his mouth to Gokudera’s and kiss the other back out of whatever composure he might have hoped to regain. He tastes against Gokudera’s mouth, his tongue pressing ticklish sensation against the curve of Gokudera’s lip, and Gokudera opens his mouth without hesitating to let Yamamoto lick in against the heat of his tongue. Yamamoto tastes good -- he always tastes good, sweet and cool at once -- and Gokudera’s attention fades out into the pleasure of that contact for a few seconds, his desperate hold at the other’s shoulder easing and sliding up to curl against the back of Yamamoto’s neck instead. He’s relaxing against the support of the couch, his body easing at the cushions; and then there’s a touch at his hip, the ghosting weight of Yamamoto’s fingers pressing at his shirt, and Gokudera gasps a breath gone suddenly electric with heat.

“Ah,” Yamamoto breathes, sounding as dizzy as Gokudera feels. “Is this okay?”

Gokudera feels like he can’t breathe, like his whole body is vibrating with the force of the too-much anticipation quivering through his veins. He jerks his head in a nod. “Hurry _up_ , baseball idiot.”

Yamamoto’s laugh against his lips is as sweet as his mouth. “Yeah,” he says, and he actually does. Gokudera is grateful, somewhere in the distant rationality that has abandoned him with the panting anticipation that has so gripped his breathing and undone his thoughts; he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to wait much longer, doesn’t know if he’ll lose his nerve or his patience first and doesn’t want to find out. But Yamamoto is undoing the front of his jeans, working open buckle and button with a speed as if he’s done this dozens of times before, and Gokudera can feel his whole body winding tighter on anticipation but it’s fine, it’s okay, because Yamamoto’s fingers are curling against the edge of his pants and pushing them down off his hips and when he feels this anxious with want there’s no space in him for the self-consciousness that might otherwise have come with the cool of the air against his bare skin. It’s a relief more than anything else, to have the restriction of his jeans and boxers down and catching around his knees instead with the promise of satisfaction to come; and then Yamamoto pauses, his hand still at Gokudera’s hip, and ducks his head to look down instead of moving.

Gokudera could hit him. It’s impossible to _not_ think about how he looks, when Yamamoto’s so clearly staring at the strain against Gokudera’s thighs and the hard length of his cock pressing almost flush to his stomach, and even Yamamoto’s own completely disheveled clothes aren’t enough to stem the flood of self-consciousness that hits Gokudera’s veins in place of the want that was so blisteringly desperate a moment before. Gokudera wants Yamamoto’s hands on him, wants the relief of friction stroking over him to groan in the back of his throat and draw his hips bucking up into satisfaction; and instead he has Yamamoto’s attention but not Yamamoto’s touch, all the focus he doesn’t want and none of the friction he craves.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spits, feeling his face burn to what he’s sure is a highly unflattering shade of crimson. “Are you just going to _stare_?”

Yamamoto shakes his head, which is good, but still doesn’t move, which is bad. “No,” he says, but he sounds dazed, like he’s struggling for coherency. “You’re so _beautiful_.”

Gokudera’s entire body comes alight. His embarrassment is too much to limit itself to just his face; it’s down his whole neck, now, burning over his shoulders and arms and even onto his chest, until he thinks he could light the room if he had bothered to take his shirt off. Bad enough for Yamamoto to compliment him, worse that he sounds so _sincere_ ; to choose this particular timing is just…

“Oh my _god_ ,” Gokudera groans, and tips his head back against the couch so he can shut his eyes and think very seriously about whether he can stop existing in himself until he can stop blushing. “Shut _up_ , you are _so_ embarrassing.”

“It’s just true,” Yamamoto says.

“I don’t care,” Gokudera says, and he’s lifting a hand to his face now, as if there’s any hope at all of covering the flush all over his features. “I just want to _come_ , fuck, if you want to be sappy and romantic I’ll go lock myself in the bathroom or something.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is softer than it has any right to be, so warm it sounds almost tender at his lips. “No,” he says. “It’s fine.”

Gokudera is about to open his mouth to tell him it’s _not_ fine, that he needs to move his hand or Gokudera will move it for him; but then Yamamoto shifts back across the cushions, sliding down to press his chest close against Gokudera’s thigh, and Gokudera drops his arm and lifts his head in the first sudden shock of realization. “ _Oh_.”

“Is this okay?” Yamamoto lifts his head to look up at Gokudera. Gokudera’s never noticed, before, how flushed Yamamoto’s lips are after he’s been kissed, never before thought about how warm his mouth is. “Or I can--”

“Fine,” Gokudera says, talking too quickly and not able to find it in him to care. “No, this is fine.”

Yamamoto’s smile dimples at the corner of his mouth. “Okay,” he says, and then he ducks his head, and his mouth is pressing to Gokudera’s cock, and all Gokudera’s self-consciousness evaporates into the rush of heat that jolts up the whole of his spine. He makes some sound he didn’t mean to, a desperate groan so far in the back of his throat he can taste the purr of it against his tongue, but against him Yamamoto is humming, is parting his lips wider and letting Gokudera slide in against the heat of his mouth, and Gokudera can’t even think for how warm Yamamoto’s mouth is. It feels different than the familiar friction of his hand, hotter and wetter and slower, with the pace dragged out long by the awkward angle Yamamoto is settled at; but every motion of his mouth is an explosion against Gokudera’s spine, every shift of his tongue is flexing a jolt of tension through the whole of Gokudera’s body, and he’s dizzily grateful for the slower pace just for the occasional gasping breaths it allows him to take.

“Oh fuck,” he’s saying, incoherence toppling too fast from his lips for him to try to control. “Fuck, Takeshi, that’s-- _ah_ ” as the head of his cock slides in against the press of Yamamoto’s tongue to flare fire all through his veins. “Oh my _god_.” Gokudera’s legs are shaking, the motion utterly involuntary; he’s clutching at Yamamoto’s hair, at the shoulder of the other’s shirt, his grip clinging even though he doesn’t remember reaching out for the contact. “Takeshi, _fuck_ , _god_ , I’m…” as his vision starts to haze, as Yamamoto’s hand at his hip tightens to brace him steady. Gokudera’s gasping for air, he feels like he’s going to pass out if he can’t fill his lungs with more oxygen; but he can’t look away, he can’t lift his gaze from the dark of Yamamoto’s hair in the fist of his fingers, from the shift of the other’s shoulders into rhythmic elegance as he leans close over Gokudera’s hips, as his mouth slides down to take Gokudera farther back over his tongue. They must look striking, Gokudera thinks, with Yamamoto sprawled to such languid grace over him and his fingers desperate in Yamamoto’s hair like he’s pushing him down, like it’s his grip guiding the other through the semi-rhythmic movements he’s taking; and that’s it, Gokudera can feel himself break even as his hand in Yamamoto’s hair clenches to pull against the soft of the dark strands. His head goes back, his chest flexes for air, and “ _Takeshi_ ” spills from his throat in the shape of a moan as his hips jolt up and he comes into Yamamoto’s mouth. He’s choking over his breathing, his inhales all turning into tiny, trembling whimpers as his body quivers through the first pulses of heat and hums through the aftershocks; but there’s no space in Gokudera’s mind for self-consciousness now, no consideration of embarrassment anywhere in the white-out haze of his thoughts.

Yamamoto waits to pull away for long seconds; it’s not until Gokudera has thought to unwind the tension of his grip from the other’s hair that he even braces himself to move, and then it’s slowly, carefully enough that the drag of his lips pulls another groan from Gokudera’s throat as his hips buck up to try to follow the heat of the other’s tongue. Yamamoto lifts a hand to his mouth, dragging the back of his hand across his damp lips as he swallows, but he doesn’t even move to sit up all the way; he just slides himself forward by a span of inches, freeing a hand from his grip at Gokudera’s hip to loop around the other’s waist instead as he turns his head to make a pillow of Gokudera’s chest and sighs a note of unmistakeable satisfaction against the other’s shirt.

“You sound pleased with yourself,” Gokudera says, trying for an irritable tone that just comes out warm and satisfied.

Yamamoto’s smile is soft at his lips. “Mm,” he hums. “I am.” He turns his head up to blink at Gokudera, his eyes still hazy with the effects of his own orgasm. “I like getting you off.”

Gokudera snorts. “What a coincidence,” he says. “I like you getting me off too.” That makes Yamamoto laugh, brightens his eyes to sparkling brilliance and dimples his cheeks, and Gokudera grins even as his cheeks flush to heat and he lifts a hand to shove at the top of Yamamoto’s head to make him turn away again. Yamamoto turns obediently enough but Gokudera doesn’t let him go; he settles his fingers in against Yamamoto’s hair instead, winding his touch in against the strands with idle inattention as he gazes up at the ceiling and thinks about nothing at all, his thoughts wiped blessedly clear by the shudder of pleasure through his exhausted body.

It’s Yamamoto who stirs, just slightly, a shift of his shoulders that says he has something to say more than any actual interest in moving. Gokudera frowns, feeling vague alarm starting to prickle through his veins at what Yamamoto might see fit to voice; but all he offers is “Can I call you Hayato?”, the topic so entirely out of left field it takes Gokudera a long moment to even make sense of it.

Gokudera blinks and ducks his head to direct his frown at the top of Yamamoto’s head since the other isn’t looking at him. “What?”

“Do you mind?” Yamamoto asks. “If you’re calling me Takeshi.” Gokudera’s face heats, his cheeks coloring with the reminder of his own unthinking slip of the tongue, but there’s no judgment in Yamamoto’s voice and no tension anywhere in his shoulders.“I’d like to.”

Gokudera groans and tips his head back against the couch so he can shut his eyes and will away the heat in his face. “Have I told you you’re embarrassing?”

“Mm,” Yamamoto hums, sounding amused. “Does that mean I can?”

“Fuck,” Gokudera says without lifting his head. “ _Yes_ , fine, do whatever you want.”

“Okay,” Yamamoto says without any indication of noticing the strain on Gokudera’s words. “Thanks, Hayato.” Gokudera groans in the back of his throat and lifts a hand to cover the flush across his face; but Yamamoto just laughs against his shirt, and Gokudera can’t hold back the grin that tugs at the corner of his mouth.

It’s easy to smile when he has Yamamoto with him.


	21. Breaking

“It was so _cool_ ,” Yamamoto burbles to Enma, his voice dropping into his usual easy lilt of enthusiasm as he looks over to grin at Tsuna. “Tsuna fired and it was so _loud_ , like _ba-boom_ all at once through the whole room!”

Tsuna makes a face. “I didn’t do that much,” he says, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders into the uncertain posture that always makes it easy to believe his self-deprecating claims. “We were there as a group, everyone helped contribute.”

“None of us actually hit him though,” Gokudera puts in. There’s a twinge of self-consciousness at the back of his head, a moment of unpleasant awareness that all _he_ managed to do was collapse under the weight of his own hallucinations and need rescuing from his weapon partner; but it’s fleeting, half-formed and disintegrating even as it passes. It’s been easier to let that thought go than Gokudera expected it to be; even with barely a day and a half between their stumbling emergence from the Academy basement and their current return to classes, the memory of his own performance -- or rather lack thereof -- comes and goes rapidly, without even threatening the grin Gokudera’s had since Yamamoto started talking about their mission in answer to Enma’s polite inquiry. “Even Hibari didn’t land a hit.”

“It wasn’t _just_ me,” Tsuna protests, his face coloring darker at this claim. “Shoichi really did the hard part, once we got the Madness wavelength under control.” His gaze goes distant, his mouth goes soft; Gokudera can almost read the other’s concern from the crease forming at his forehead. “I don’t think I could have done what he did. He was really brave to come down there with us.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Enma shivers, clasping his arms over his chest in an uncanny echo of Tsuna’s own uncomfortable position. “It’d be awful to go down there not knowing if your partner’s going to be okay or not. And actually attacking them?”

Gokudera does frown, at that. “It was the only way to save him,” he puts in, scowling at Enma as the other flinches back from the rough edge on his voice. “He had to do whatever he could to save his meister. Anyone would have.”

“I guess,” Enma allows, tipping even further in on himself like he’s trying to evaporate entirely. “It sounds like a lot of responsibility to have a regular partner.”

“You’ll find one soon,” Tsuna puts in, reaching out to weight Enma’s shoulder with the comfort of a touch. Enma looks away from Gokudera at once, blinking fast as he meets Tsuna’s gaze; Tsuna huffs an exhale and even manages a reassuring smile on behalf of the other. “I don’t really have a real partner either, you know. Reborn’s more of a mentor than anything else.”

Enma’s smile eases some of the anxious stress across his forehead and lightens the dark of his eyes; for a moment he looks almost comfortable, like he might actually be able to maintain a conversation without stammering himself into shy silence like Gokudera’s always seen. “Yeah,” he says, sounding as relieved as he looks. “You’re probably right.”

“Yeah,” Tsuna says. His hand is still on Enma’s shoulder; he’s smiling at the other boy with his whole face warm and bright in that way it sometimes gets when he’s sincerely pleased. “Hey, maybe we could even team up together, whenever Reborn decides to set me free from the hell training he’s decided to put me through.”

It’s remarkable to see the way Enma’s face lights up; if his first smile undid some of the perpetual strain in his expression, this one unravels almost all of it, until even his shoulders straighten a little under the weight of Tsuna’s hand. “Yeah?” he says, and even his voice is easier, like he’s gaining confidence from the other’s touch. “You think so?”

“Sure,” Tsuna says. “I think that’d be--” and that’s as far as he gets into what he thinks it would be, because the classroom door slams open with so much force that it ricochets off the wall and swings back towards the newest entry into the room. Enma jumps, Tsuna yelps, and Gokudera reaches out without thinking to grab at Yamamoto’s arm as he looks back over his shoulder towards the door. His heart is racing fast in his chest, his veins flaring hot with the sudden adrenaline of expected combat; but Yamamoto isn’t transforming under his hold, there’s none of the shouting Gokudera expected, and he’s just getting his attention to focus on the scarlet hair of the student standing breathless in the doorway when Yamamoto says “Oh, Irie,” with easy calm, as if Irie made his entrance in a perfectly normal fashion instead of as if he’s on a mission to avert some apocalyptic future. “Hello!”

“Huh?” Irie turns to stare at them blankly, his eyes wide and glazed for the first moment like he’s not really seeing them, or like he’s struggling to put names to faces; it’s not until his gaze lands on Tsuna that his expression shifts, that the wide-eyed panic across the whole of his face collapses into sudden, startling relief. “ _Tsuna_.” He drops the door behind him, ignoring the stares of the rest of the students as entirely as the way his movement leaves the weight to slam shut behind him as he steps in close to join the little circle they have formed between them. “I need to talk to you.”

“Hi,” Gokudera deadpans. “Nice to see you again too.”

“And you,” Irie says at once, turning that panic-bright gaze on Gokudera for a moment before he looks up to Yamamoto next to him. “And Yamamoto-kun, of course.” He looks across the group to Enma, his forehead creasing as he lifts a hand to rumple roughly through his hair. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

Enma shakes his head. “Kozato Enma,” he says, his voice so soft Gokudera can barely hear him. His shoulders are hunching in again in spite of Tsuna’s hand still at his shoulder.

“Irie Shoichi,” Irie says, and then looks back to the rest of them, apparently too caught up in his own stress to spend more than a moment on the niceties of introduction. “I’m sorry, but this is very important. I need to talk to all of you as soon as possible.”

“Fine,” Gokudera frowns. “We’re here. Talk.”

Irie groans and shoves his hand through his hair again until it’s tangling all across the top of his head. “Not _here_ ,” he says, his voice breaking over the strain on it. There are dark shadows under his eyes, Gokudera sees as Irie lifts his head to look at him; he looks like he’s lost more sleep since the fight rather than caught up on it. “Somewhere else. Somewhere _private_.”

“What?” Tsuna says, his eyes opening wide as he gazes at Irie. “Why?”

Irie takes a deep breath, filling his chest entirely before he huffs out in a rush like he’s deflating, like the tension holding him together is giving way to the slumping shoulders of resignation, or as if all the exhaustion so clearly printed in his face is suddenly making itself clear in his whole posture.

“Because Byakuran woke up this morning,” he says, the words clear even though his tone is still soft enough that no one beyond the angle of their shoulders will be able to hear them. “And he told me what made him fall into Madness in the first place.”

Gokudera wants to protest this. They just finished a fight for their lives against Irie’s meister; the idea of taking his word for an evident crisis barely a day after trying to kill him seems absurd, a kind of madness all in itself. But Yamamoto and Tsuna are both watching Irie with complete focus in their expressions, their usual cheerful or insecure personas entirely given over for sincere attention, and when Gokudera really looks at Irie he can’t see any of the manic insanity that was crackling over Byakuran like electricity. Irie looks tired down to his bones, his hair and clothes disheveled into tells for insomnia too clear for Gokudera’s eyes to miss; but his mouth is set on tension, his gaze is clear even behind his lopsided glasses, and there’s no trace of insincerity anywhere in his expression.

Gokudera’s almost disappointed. He would have liked to have a little more of a break before the next crisis.


	22. Revelation

Byakuran looks different in the daylight.

It’s the lighting, for one thing. The gold of the sun overhead is warmer to the pale of his skin and the strange shading of his hair; he looks far more ordinary with his features illuminated by something more than the snapping electricity of Soul Force or complete hallucination, Gokudera still isn’t sure which. There’s also the fact that his smile is just ordinary levels of unsettling, rather than something so brilliant with mania that Gokudera can feel it tear through any defenses he might have like it’s trying to seek out the very core of who he is to dismantle it. And it helps, too, that he’s dressed in the soft of pajama pants and the thin of a hospital gown; it’s very hard to find someone terrifying when he’s bearing such clear markers of fragility.

For all that, Byakuran doesn’t actually look that unwell. His face shows none of the signs of exhaustion Irie’s is so clearly expressing, and the way he perches at the edge of the balcony where Irie led them all says he’s not feeling much physical strain either. The only visible injury that Gokudera can see is the sharp-pointed mark just under Byakuran’s left eye, the scar so fresh that it looks almost purple even in the full light of day. That’s from Irie, Gokudera realizes, from the press of his fingers to the meister’s face for whatever healing wavelength he sent through the other; but Byakuran doesn’t seem self-conscious about it any more than he looks discomfited by facing a handful of the people who were seriously considering killing him just a few days prior. He in fact looks more comfortable with the situation than Irie does, judging from the way he beams at them all from his position at the edge of the balcony as if he’s a king welcoming visitors to his palace.

“Hello,” he says as the cluster of them approach him. “Good to see you all again under better circumstances.” He tips his head, angling to the side like he’s trying to see around Yamamoto’s height and Tsuna’s slouched shoulders. “I don’t think I’ve met you.”

“Oh,” Enma says. Gokudera hadn’t even realized he was still with them, he’s been so quiet and moved so entirely in Tsuna’s wake. “Me?”

Byakuran’s laugh is like bells. “Yes, you,” he lilts. “You don’t really expect to hide in a crowd this small, do you?”

“Ah,” Enma mumbles, and Gokudera gets the strong impression that that had been precisely his intent. He ducks his head, fixes his gaze to his shuffling feet. “I’m Kozato Enma.”

“Kozato-kun,” Byakuran repeats without the least hesitation. “Nice to meet you. I’m Byakuran, of course. You already know my partner Sho-chan?”

“Uh…” Enma looks from Byakuran to the rest of them, glancing at Gokudera and Yamamoto and even Tsuna before his gaze lands on Irie and his expression clears with understand of who _Sho-chan_ must be. “Yes.”

“Great!” Byakuran claps his hands together loudly enough that Enma jumps and even Tsuna flinches. “Let’s get started then. What have you told them so far, Sho-chan?”

“Nothing,” Irie says. “You told me not to say anything inside the Academy itself so I just brought them here first thing.”

“Good,” Byakuran purrs. “We’ll have to be careful with information, under the circumstances.”

Gokudera’s teeth grit against each other. He can picture his patience fraying like a thread, can almost feel the fibers giving way with every moment some secret information goes unstated. “ _What_ circumstances?”

Byakuran’s gaze slides away from Irie to Gokudera instead. “Gokudera-kun,” he says, drawling over the name like they’re old friends, as if they have had any interactions at all besides Gokudera trying to kill Byakuran and Byakuran trying to push Gokudera into sincere insanity. “You’re always ready to jump into things with both feet, aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Gokudera growls. “What does that have to do with whatever big secret you have to tell us?”

“Oh, nothing,” Byakuran agrees instantly. “Your enthusiasm will be a big help here. It’s good to have someone who won’t balk at what has to be done.”

Gokudera rolls his eyes. “If you don’t spit it out I swear I’ll--”

“It’s simple,” Byakuran says, speaking loudly enough that his voice cuts clearly over Gokudera’s. “We’re going to overthrow the Academy.”

Everything goes silent for a moment. Gokudera’s mouth is still open on his unfinished sentence; but there are no words in his head now for the unmitigated shock that hit with Byakuran’s statement. He stares at the other for a moment, waiting for a laugh, or a grin, or something to indicate that this is a joke; and then, when that fails, he looks sideways, to Tsuna staring blankly at Byakuran and Irie’s mouth set on a tight line of determination. Yamamoto glances at him when Gokudera looks up at him, their eyes meeting for a moment; but he looks more perplexed than anything else, like he’s struggling to make sense of Byakuran’s words instead of having the reasonable reaction, and that means it falls to Gokudera to step up to the plate.

“Alright,” he says finally, turning back to meet Byakuran’s steady gaze. “Whatever crazy magic we used on you clearly didn’t work, so we’re just going to leave now.” He reaches for Yamamoto’s wrist, closes his fingers in close against the warmth of the other’s skin. “Come on, Yamamoto, let’s get out of here.”

“I’m not crazy,” Byakuran says, in exactly the calm tones that the truly insane _would_ offer. “Sho-chan wouldn’t be here if I was still affected.”

Gokudera scoffs. “Madness is contagious and worse if you’re partners. Of _course_ he thinks this makes sense, you must have got to him before he realized what had happened.”

“Can you see soul wavelengths?” Byakuran asks, the non-sequitur so abrupt that it stalls out Gokudera’s attempted retreat where he stands, even if only for the first moment of confusion. Gokudera frowns and shakes his head to shed the distraction, but: “I can,” Byakuran continues, his gaze still fixed full on Gokudera and his focus so intent Gokudera can’t quite figure out how to look away. “Where do you think the Madness came from in the first place?”

Gokudera huffs irritation. “The Kishin, obviously. That’s where _all_ Madness comes from, I’m not an idiot.”

“Yes,” Byakuran says. “Of course. And the Kishin is imprisoned far, far away, right? You learned that from your textbooks too, didn’t you?” His smile is syrup-sweet and holds to his lips even when Gokudera scowls by way of response to this. “There’s no reason at all there should be a Kishin soul here at the Academy.” He leans back against the edge of the balcony, his smile still curving to uncanny warmth across his features. “You’re all perfectly safe students fighting to make the world a better place just like all the other good little boys and girls.”

The condescension on his words is so thick Gokudera can all but see it in the air even without the ability to see soul wavelengths. He wonders how much exposure to complete insanity it would take to start the hallucinations again; maybe if he moves really quickly he can punch Byakuran in the face before his sister shows back up. Yamamoto would probably be able to pull him back to a safe range afterwards anyway. “What, just because you can see soul wavelengths we’re supposed to take your word for it that the Academy is...what, being run by a Kishin?”

Gokudera means the words to be absurd, to sound as obviously foolish as they feel in his head. But Byakuran ducks his head and lets his smile go wider as if Gokudera has gotten some tricky test question right. “That’s right,” he says, and then, without waiting for anyone else to speak: “Can’t any of you see wavelengths too?” as his gaze slides away from Gokudera with dismissal so clear in the shift that it makes Gokudera growl frustration in the back of his throat. “To help persuade Gokudera-kun that I’m not toying with his fragile sanity.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Gokudera snaps, but from his side there’s another voice: “Oh wow!” and he loses track of what he was saying for the bright chirp of Yamamoto’s words. “Can you really?”

“Woah,” Tsuna breathes, sounding awestruck for some cause Gokudera can’t make sense of for a moment. “It’s really rare, that’s awesome Enma!” It’s only then that Gokudera thinks to look around the angle of Yamamoto’s shoulders and behind them, where Enma has been taking up as little space as possible. He’s still hunching his shoulders, still has his head ducked forward like he’s bracing himself against the inevitability of a blow; but he has his hand raised close against the angle of his body, his whole arm pressing tight against his side as he extends his fingers barely past the height of his shoulder.

“Are you kidding,” Gokudera asks, his voice so flat any questioning tone is knocked free from the words as fast as he speaks them. “ _You_ can see soul wavelengths?”

Enma ducks his head and drops his hand, looking as cringingly terrified as if Gokudera had brandished a fist at him. “Yeah,” he says, mumbling the words as if he’s not entirely certain of their accuracy. “I’ve always been able to.”

“Bullshit,” Gokudera says, more from surprise than anger, but Enma still flinches back.

“Oh my gosh,” Tsuna breathes. “Does that mean you can see all of our wavelengths right now?”

Enma’s shoulder’s hunch in. When he shakes his head all Gokudera can see of him is the rumple of his hair falling in front of his face. “I don’t usually try to look,” he says. “It seems impolite to see someone’s wavelength without their permission.”

“Forget _impolite_ ,” Gokudera growls. “That’s _incredibly_ useful for a meister. Do you know how many people would kill to have that ability? You’d have no problem finding yourself a weapon partner if anyone knew that you could--”

“So you can see soul wavelengths,” Byakuran says, speaking loudly to cut off Gokudera’s words yet again. Gokudera turns to glare at the other but Byakuran’s focus is still on Enma instead of on him, the full force of that sugar-sweet smile offered unflinchingly to the uncomfortable tilt of the other’s shoulders. “Perfect!” He lifts a hand from his side to point towards the weight of the Academy building looming behind them. “Look at the school, please.”

Enma blinks, confusion apparently winning out over uncertainty. “W-what?”

“Look at the school,” Byakuran repeats, more slowly, with the beginnings of that condescension rising in his tone again. “You’ll see it right away as soon as you look from a distance like this.” He lets his hand drop to his side, bracing his hand against the ledge behind him so he can lean back against the support. “You weren’t even there during the last mission, I haven’t had any time at all to infect you as Gokudera-kun is so concerned about.” Gokudera hisses at this but Byakuran just smiles at him; and Byakuran hardly matters anyway, under the circumstances, because Enma is shuffling to turn around, tipping his head far back to gaze up at the structure of the Academy before them.

There’s a pause, a long span of heartbeats while Enma stares and the rest of them wait; finally it’s Irie who speaks, who says “Don’t you see it?” with his voice trembling on the same strain that appears to be the primary force keeping him on his feet under the circumstances. “It _is_ there, isn’t it?”

“You mean you went to all this trouble just on his _word_?” Gokudera demands. “I don’t care if he _is_ your partner, he tried to kill us all, he doesn’t deserve any kind of trust.”

“I don’t _want_ to believe him,” Irie snaps back, looking away from Enma’s frowning concentration to Gokudera instead. “I’d be a lot happier if I could ignore this, it would be so much _easier_ to just forget about it. But if it’s really there then we have to--”

“ _Oh_ ,” Enma gasps, the sound loud enough that it’s almost a shout and more than enough to make Gokudera jump with the shock. He looks back to Enma, his mouth drawing down to the beginnings of a frown as he opens his mouth to speak; but Enma is stumbling backwards from the front of the building, backing away from the familiar shape without any attention to the edge of the balcony behind him. “Oh _god_.”

His expression is answer enough to whatever uncertainties Gokudera might have had; the horror in his wide eyes is easy enough to parse, even without that involuntary retreat his feet are carrying him through. Gokudera’s blood goes cold with the weight of belief, with certainty too immediate for him to disregard however much he might want to; from the other side of the group Irie lets out a breath that has something of a sob on it, as if he’s not sure whether to be relieved or miserable that his meister’s claims have been validated as something other than insanity. And from his perch on the balcony:

“Yes,” Byakuran purrs, sounding pleased down to his very bones with their reaction, as if he’s gaining satisfaction directly from the panic Gokudera can see printed clearly across Enma’s expression with a fainter echo behind Tsuna’s wide eyes. “You see now.”

“Oh my god,” Enma says again, his voice faint and breathless at the back of his throat. “It’s _huge_ , how did...what _is_ it?”

“A Kishin, I believe,” Byakuran says without any of the hesitation the declaration deserves. “In the upper echelons of the Academy. I asked Sho-chan to look into it after I came around and could tell him about it.”

“I _did_ look into it,” Irie says, more defensively than Byakuran’s tone seems to require. “I told you. Only Lord Death and Death Weapons are allowed up there.”

“And if it was one of the Death Weapons Lord Death would have dealt with it himself,” Byakuran concludes, turning back to beam at them all like a parent offering some long-awaited treat. “So it must be the headmaster himself. Imagine, all this time we’ve been studying to overthrow some horrible creature who was actually in charge of the school all along.” He tips his head to the side, his smile breaking wide on a giggle breathless enough that Gokudera has a moment to wonder if he really _is_ entirely sane, even after the effect of Irie’s wavelength on him. “It’s _delightful_.”

“It’s _awful_ ,” Irie snaps. “The school’s been manipulating everyone all this time, that’s hardly something to be appreciated.”

“Oh yes,” Byakuran says without his smile so much as flickering. “Very awful, yes, naturally.” He straightens all at once, lifting his chin so he’s looking down at the rest of them from his position on the balcony ledge; Gokudera almost draws back from the sudden weight of the other’s presence, from the force of charisma Byakuran seems to be glowing with. The sunlight catches his hair to white gold, the backlighting turns the purple of his eyes to shadow; for a moment Gokudera can almost imagine the outline of those Madness-formed wings again, can almost feel the resonance of Byakuran’s voice against the inside of his chest as he did in the depths of the basement.

“So,” Byakuran says, and there’s no laughter on his voice or in his face at all now, just complete, unflinching focus as he looks from one of them to the next. “What do you say? Want to join us in saving the world from evil?” He lets the words hang in the air for a moment, collecting weight and force in the pause; and then his mouth curves onto a grin, and his head angles to the side once more. “Or the school, at least. Close enough for your purposes, right?”

There’s another moment of silence, this one loaded with the intent offered by Byakuran’s words. Irie is standing a little apart from the rest of them, his head ducked and his hands wound tight around each other in front of him; it’s clear which side he’s chosen, even without the way Byakuran doesn’t even bother glancing to see his response. That leaves the other four of them; but Gokudera doesn’t have to look to know the way Tsuna’s shoulders will be straightening, to see the set of determination that always looks a little more suited to the soft of the other’s expression with each passing day. Enma is all but a stranger, his decision will make no difference to Gokudera either way; and that just leaves the last.

Yamamoto is watching Gokudera when the other looks up at him. There’s a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, the expression lopsided to match the angle of his head as he gazes at his partner; there’s no stress anywhere in his face, no indication of tension in him from the weight of the revelation they’ve all just been party to. He looks relaxed, comfortable, like he’s as ready to follow Gokudera into this as into any of the fights they’ve made it through before; and Gokudera takes a breath, and squares his shoulders, and looks back.

“Yeah,” he says, speaking loud so he sounds sure of himself. “We’re in.”

It’s not like he really needed Yamamoto’s approval to make the decision anyway; but it’s good to know he has it in any case.


	23. Shatter

They make it all the way to the hallway of the Death Room before they’re stopped.

Gokudera is surprised. They hardly make a nonthreatening group; there’s too many of them, for one, and for another all the weapons transformed well in advance of their procession down the hallway. There’s Ryohei at the back of the group with Kyoko as boxing gloves strapped tight around his hands, and Hibari up at the front with his usual tonfas, looking irritated at being kept behind Byakuran’s casual lead. Byakuran has Irie’s weapon form caught between his fingers; a dart, as near as Gokudera can see, and he can’t imagine what good that will be in a full-blown fight but Byakuran appears as unperturbed as if he’s outfitted in a full array of armor, and Gokudera’s not about to waste time fretting about the other’s safety. Gokudera is left in the middle of the group, his fingers clenched to fists around the baseball bat in his hands, with the unfamiliar bright of Enma’s hair in his periphery and the occasionally metallic click of the gloves wrapping the other’s hands when he tenses his fingers on the anxiety so clear in his face. It’s strange to have Tsuna in his weapon form since he partnered with Reborn -- a necessity, Gokudera knows, since the Death Weapon has been notably absent in the days since Byakuran’s rescue and subsequent revelation, but not a comfortable one -- and Gokudera can’t help glancing at the weight of the gloves every few steps, feeling off-balance and disoriented no matter how hard he tries to settle himself.

 _It’ll be okay_ , Yamamoto murmurs at the back of his mind, not for the first time since they left the abandoned classroom they used as a gathering point with every intention of fighting their way into the Death Room if they have to. _We’ve got this, we can take them on!_

 _I_ know, Gokudera snaps back, also not for the first time. Ahead of them Byakuran is all but skipping down the hallway, humming some fragment of song that Gokudera can hear just enough of to grit his teeth on irritation at not being able to place it. _That’s not what I’m worried about._ He cuts his eyes sideways at the hallways around them, feels his mouth dragging deeper into a scowl at the echoing silence. _Where is everyone?_

 _In class?_ Yamamoto suggests, but it’s a weak attempt and Gokudera knows it, can almost see the apologetic soft of the other’s smile as he offers a suggestion he knows to be absurd. Even in the middle of the school day there are always a few stragglers, or wannabe delinquents, or upperclassmen out on individual missions instead of attending the more general group lectures for the newer students; the absolute silence around them makes Gokudera’s skin crawl and speaks to far more than just an unusually quiet day at the Academy.

 _They know we’re coming_.

This is hardly a surprise. They wouldn’t make a subtle group even if all the weapons were still in human form and Byakuran had chosen to forgo the truly absurd fashion sense he apparently takes on when outside of the necessary ill fit of a hospital gown; Gokudera has never before seen someone wearing so many zippers in such improbable places and hopes to never do so again. But Lord Death has always seemed preternaturally aware of what happens in the Academy every time Gokudera has had occasion to speak to him about or just after a mission, and Gokudera has been sure, somewhere in the back of his mind, that any real attempt at secrecy was doomed before it began, Byakuran’s stylized flourishes towards such notwithstanding. Still, none of them have said anything about it before now, they’ve all silently agreed to not mention it; and so it’s only now, with the walls of the empty Academy bearing down on them as they climb the sloped hallway to the entrance to the Death Room, that Gokudera is forced to confront the inevitable welcoming party they are surely going to find waiting for them.

That’s what they’ve come for, he tells himself. They’re all ready for a fight; there was never any expectation of coming out of this unscathed, or they wouldn’t have their weapons already transformed and braced against a meister’s grip. Even Enma is moving forward, his cheeks bloodless and lips set but still walking, still flexing his fingers in the gloves of Tsuna’s weapon form like he’s bracing himself for combat to come; and if untried meister Kozato Enma can face this, Gokudera certainly isn’t going to flinch from it. He turns his gaze forward, sets his jaw hard on determination; and then, from the front of the group: “Here we are!” Byakuran declares, his voice chirping high and lilting over unnecessary cheer, and Gokudera’s skin goes cold with terror in spite of himself.

He wants to stop him. The hallway is silent around them, the Academy echoing back every scuff of their shoes as if to judge them; Byakuran could be mistaken, still, and Enma too, perhaps they’re walking forward into a treasonous mutiny that will scar all their records past saving. But it’s not the possibility of being expelled from the Academy that has Gokudera’s heart pounding so fast in his chest, and he knows it as surely as if Yamamoto were offering words enough to point it out to his attention; it’s that they might be _right_ , and that for all Yamamoto’s ever-cheerful optimism Gokudera has never been able to muster cheer for a doomed situation.

 _It’s not doomed_ , Yamamoto says in the back of his head, softly, and louder, in front of him: “Let’s go, then,” Byakuran declares, and he pulls the door to the Death Room wide open.

It’s quiet inside, too. There’s the first rush of wind that always comes with opening the door to the room, desert-dry and warm as if from the force of the same sun that illuminates the sky forming the ceiling of the room to a brilliant blue; and nothing else, no shots and no shouts and none of the aggression Gokudera was so braced for. Gokudera blinks, his shoulders relaxing for a moment; at his side Enma takes a breath, behind them Ryohei shouts a declaration that this is “ _extremely_ confusing!” No one pays him any more attention than Gokudera does; because at the front of their group, just before Hibari’s set glower, Byakuran is humming louder and stepping forward into the long corridor of torii that lead up to the raised dais where Gokudera has always met Lord Death on the handful of his other previous visits.

“Hello!” Byakuran calls, pitching his voice bright and crystalline before anyone can stop him. Enma flinches, Hibari hisses viciously; but Byakuran doesn’t look back at either of them. From the brilliant smile he’s giving the path winding up to that central dais, Gokudera would guess he’s forgotten all about the rest of them. He’s still toying with the dart at his fingers; it’s pure white, like ivory or snow, all but glowing in the ambient light that fills the Death Room at every moment of the day. There are feathers tapering at the end, like a reminder of wings; Gokudera is reminded of that moment down in the basement, of Byakuran’s voice echoing back with layers upon layers of sound musical and ear-piercing at once. He wonders if the scar at Byakuran’s cheek really does mean the other is approaching sanity again, wonders if they’re all following a madman to their own destruction. “Anyone home?” He begins to walk up the path towards the dais, still looking around with that smile clinging to his lips and his fingers turning the dart over and over in his grip without any apparent consideration for its use as a weapon. “We’ve got some questions to ask, you see.”

“ _Byakuran Gesso_.”

The voice is a familiar one, low and heavy and so resonant with sound Gokudera can feel it through every bone in his body like they’re humming with the force of it, like they’re trying to fall into sync with the assumed dominance of that tone. His fingers clench tight around the handle of the bat in his grip, his shoulders tense with stubborn resistance; but at the front of the group Byakuran is lifting his head, looking comfortable and carefree like he doesn’t hear the weight of that tone at all.

“Lord Death,” he says, his tone musical and too-loud in the arid silence of the room. “Exactly who we were looking for. We have a few questions we were hoping you could answer.”

Lord Death doesn’t come into view, exactly. It’s more that he materializes, like the air itself gives way to the shadow of his impenetrable black robes in the gap between one breath and the next. This is a typical part of his arrival, Gokudera has seen it a dozen times before; but in this moment, with his nerves as thin-frayed as they are already, it makes him cringe backwards, clenches his fingers to cramping strength against the handle of the bat under his hands.

Lord Death doesn’t respond to Byakuran’s statement. He’s looking up, past the other to consider the rest of them. “Hibari Kyouya.” The faceless shadow under the cloak tips up, attention jumping to the back of the group. “Sasagawa Ryohei and his sister Kyoko.” Down, skimming over Gokudera. “Yamamoto Takeshi and his meister.” And then sideways, with a tilt to that unseen head that makes the motion feel like a final statement, like the punctuation on the end of a sentence spelling out absolute judgment.

“Kozato Enma and Sawada Tsunayoshi.” There’s a weight on the tone, a dip at the end of the sentence; Gokudera can feel it like a bell tolling, like the weight of a parent’s disappointment against his shoulders. “We had hoped this would be Byakuran’s doing alone. It would have been...easier to handle.” There’s an infinity of suggestion in that brief pause, enough to shudder horror down Gokudera’s spine; but Lord Death is ducking his head, Lord Death is sighing a note of obvious resignation, and Gokudera is too busy bracing himself against whatever is coming to surrender to terror.

“A shame.” Lord Death takes a half-step back along the pathway, lifts his hands to shake them free of the sleeves of his dark robes. His hands are pure white, as pale as the color of the dart Byakuran is still twisting in his fingers; it takes Gokudera a moment to see the bandages wrapping around each finger to grant the whole such an uncanny pallor. “You were a promising collection of students. We would have liked to save some of you.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?” Gokudera manages, regaining some measure of his voice from the adrenaline whipping through him; but at the front, just ahead of Hibari, Byakuran is speaking with more volume: “You don’t deny it, then?”

“What is there to deny?” Lord Death asks. “You’re certain in your knowledge or there wouldn’t be so many of you, and with Kozato’s Soul Perception to support your own discovery there’s no chance of writing it off as a lingering delusion of madness.” A wrist shifts, a hand flexes; and there’s a weapon, the sleek shadow of a blade curving up to join the handle braced in Lord Death’s bandaged hands. Gokudera doesn’t know where it came from; it appeared as easily as Lord Death himself, like there was a fold in the fabric of reality itself that the weapon came through. It doesn’t matter anyway; it’s here now, and Lord Death is settling his hands into place against the handle, and the weight of his words is falling like a death sentence over them all.

“An unfortunate situation,” he says, hefting the weight of the weapon like he’s settling it into his hands. “It would have been better if you had died as you were supposed to. Your partner will regret having saved you, I think.”

“You’re wrong,” Byakuran says, his words still light and easy like he hasn’t noticed the weapon in Lord Death’s hands, like he hasn’t picked up on the note of judgement in the other’s voice. “My partner Sho-chan would do anything to save me” and he’s moving as quickly as he voices the words, lifting his hand from its idle weight as his side and flinging the dart forward in a single action so seamless Gokudera is still gasping shock as the weapon leaves Byakuran’s fingers. The dart flies true, slicing through the air to pierce the chest of the shape before them; and then there’s a jolt through the air, an action like soundless thunder rippling out from the dart, and Gokudera stumbles and nearly falls. At his side Enma does drop to a knee and has to throw out a hand to catch himself at the floor; and in front of them Lord Death takes a step backwards, wobbling like he’s been knocked off-balance from the bone-deep _thud_ of Soul Force that Irie just sent into him.

There’s a pause. That should have been enough, Gokudera calculates rapidly, that much electricity that close to a heart would be enough to knock out anything; is it over as simply as that, are they all just here to serve as a temporary distraction? But then Lord Death tips his head down to look at the dart, and lifts a hand from the handle of his scythe to pull it free; and Gokudera’s blood runs cold even as the headmaster holds it up to consider the weapon.

“An interesting trick,” he says, and then his fingers tighten and the dart snaps, the point separating cleanly from the main weight of it without so much as a moment of hesitation. Yamamoto hisses a breath at the back of Gokudera’s head, Gokudera’s fingers tighten in horror at Yamamoto’s handle; but Lord Death is dropping the weapon without hesitating, replacing his hold on the handle of his own scythe as he looks back to Byakuran. “An internal healing wavelength must be effective on minor demons or Kishin eggs that haven’t yet hatched.” His hands tighten, his arms flex; and the scythe swings up and forward, cleaving through the air too suddenly for Gokudera to track before the end of it is blooming under Byakuran’s shoulderblades like a single black wing to match the white ones he made for himself in his madness. Byakuran coughs, the sound wet and more startled than pained; and Lord Death draws the scythe back and out of him at once, trailing an arc of crimson blood to spatter across the pale sand and over the pieces of Irie’s broken weapon form. Byakuran folds forward smoothly, dropping to his knees and forward to the sand without so much as a whimper of pain; at his back color is seeping, scarlet spilling out to soak into the pristine white of his jacket.

Lord Death lifts his head to turn his gaze on the rest of them. Gokudera can feel the weight of that stare like a knife driving into his skull, like everything he is and has ever been is being peeled open and laid bare to that careless glance. When Lord Death speaks again the sound seems to come from the walls around them, from the sky overhead, from the air itself, like the whole of the world has gained the strength to speak and is pressing itself to agonizing weight against Gokudera’s eardrums.

“ _I am not so weak_.”

Ryohei reacts first, to his credit. Even Hibari is still standing frozen at the front of the group, his shoulders straight but feet unmoving; it’s Ryohei who shouts a wordless noise of protest and lunges forward to push past Enma and Gokudera at once. Hibari lifts his arm by the time Ryohei has crossed the distance; Gokudera sees them both swing as one, as if their movements have been choreographed by some outside force. Next to Gokudera Enma is taking a breath, and screaming desperation as he lunges forward; and in Gokudera’s hands Yamamoto is glowing, in his head Yamamoto is reaching out for him. It’s a wordless connection, unplanned and uncoordinated; but they don’t need to discuss this to know what to do, Gokudera doesn’t have to think about this to know to turn to Yamamoto for support. The handle in his grip starts to shift, wood giving way to the smooth hilt of a katana; in his head _Gokudera_ fractures at the seams, breaking open and melting into _Takeshi_ as smoothly as _Yamamoto_ shifts into _Hayato_. He’s disintegrating, reforming, coalescing into the glowing blue-white that is them together, their separate selves combining into a single entity as quickly as thought, as easily as--

The resistance hits at once. It’s the feel of a nerve pinching from too-hasty movement, the sound of metal scraping against a chalkboard; Gokudera gasps, choking on air he’s inhaling wrong, certain suddenly it’s water in his lungs instead of oxygen. But he’s not _Gokudera_ , he’s not himself any more than he’s Yamamoto; he’s in pieces, he’s unravelling, his self is gone and in its place--

 _Oh_ , comes a voice, familiar in resonance but wrong in tone, soft and faint and shaky with panic like it’s never sounded before. _Sorry_.

And that’s the last Gokudera hears before his awareness follows his identity, and disintegrates into darkness.


	24. Extant

The sky overhead is a brilliant blue.

It makes Gokudera’s eyes hurt. He blinks back the tears that start as he faces down the glow of sunlight reflected back off the cloudless sky, turns his head down and away like he’s trying to retreat into the comfort of a darkened room, like he’s trying to stave off the threat of the headache that started as soon as the sun hit his face. It’s not fair, to throw him into such brilliant illumination right after such…

He can’t remember where he was. Somewhere dark, he thinks, all-enveloping black to make the glow overhead so offensive to his expectations; but he can’t pull up the details, he can feel the continuity of his experience giving way as quickly as he reaches for it. He can’t remember what he was doing, can’t remember where he is meant to be; it’s disorienting, confusing, like having the ground evaporate from under him to leave him in freefall. He thinks he ought to be afraid, maybe -- panic seems like it would be a reasonable response to this particular situation -- but the closest he can come is acknowledging that fact, like he’s reading about someone else’s life and reacting with the same distance he would to a dry summary of events in a textbook.

His vision is clearing from that first blinding span of light. There’s green in front of him, the soft of grass under his feet; he’s barefoot, he realizes as he blinks himself into attention, he can feel the cool damp of the grass against his skin like it’s trying to soothe him into calm, like it’s trying to pull away some of the heat of the sunlight blazing overhead. Gokudera is grateful to that, in some small way.

“Gokudera!”

Gokudera’s head comes up at once. It’s strange to hear his name, like recognizing something familiar he had been on the verge of forgetting; but the idea vanishes as quickly as it comes, because Yamamoto is stepping out of the door of the house Gokudera is standing behind, and all Gokudera’s stalled-out sense of self sweeps back into him in an abrupt rush.

“ _Takeshi_ ,” he says, and he’s stepping forward at once, reaching out to grab at Yamamoto’s elbow, to close his hand close at the other’s shoulder like he’s holding him in place, like he’s using the other as a fixed point to ground himself against. “You’re okay.”

Yamamoto blinks at him. “What?” He seems shorter, Gokudera thinks; his hand doesn’t fit the way he expects it to against the other’s shoulder, their eyes aren’t quite at the right level. “Of course, I was just going inside to grab some drinks.” He lifts a condensation-chilled bottle up to press against Gokudera’s upraised arm, pushing against the other’s wrist until Gokudera lets his hold on Yamamoto’s shoulder go in favor of holding onto the bottle instead; Yamamoto takes a smooth step backwards as soon as he lets go to add a few inches of space between them. “You haven’t had too much already, have you?”

Gokudera frowns. “What?” When he looks down at the bottle in his hand the label is for a brand he vaguely recognizes as a brewery; the cap is off already, he can smell the bitter tang of the liquid inside. His frown deepens. “What are you talking about? Where did you _get_ this?”

“Huh?” Yamamoto’s laugh is bright, brilliant like the sunlight overhead; Gokudera can’t explain why it rings strangely hollow in his ears, why it catches onto the edge of discomfort in his chest. “The store? It’s not the fancy stuff Haru gets you, but…”

Gokudera’s forehead creases as he looks back up to Yamamoto and the absolute nonsense he is currently spouting. “ _What_?” he repeats, since Yamamoto apparently wasn’t listening the first time. “That’s not what I mean. I mean how did you…”

He’s going to ask how Yamamoto got the store to sell alcohol to him, with only his height to let him pass as of-age and even that the lean, lanky variety of athletic teenager. But he’s looking back up at Yamamoto, and the way the other is rocking back on his heels, and he really _sees_ him them, from the breadth of his shoulders and the neat cut of the suit he’s wearing to the scar marring his chin, faded by years of healing even though Gokudera is sure he’s never seen anything of the sort.

“What the fuck,” he blurts, and now he’s the one taking a step backwards, stumbling into greater distance from the stranger in front of him without thinking. “Who the _fuck_ are you.”

Yamamoto huffs a laugh but it doesn’t touch his eyes, doesn’t span any more of his face than the deliberate curve of his lips. “What are you talking about,” he says, sounding amused and looking concerned. “You know who I am. We’ve been neighbors for over a decade.”

“You’re not--” Gokudera starts, and then the door behind Yamamoto slides open, and a young woman steps out, her head ducked down over the plate of onigiri she has in her hands.

“I made lunch,” she mumbles, her voice so soft Gokudera can barely hear her at all. “Are you hungry, Takeshi?”

“Thanks!” Yamamoto chirps, turning back towards the woman with his voice skipping back to almost-convincing cheer. “I’m always ready to eat your cooking, Chrome!” And he reaches out to press a hand against the woman’s shoulder, and ducks in to press his lips against her forehead with casual affection.

Gokudera’s breath gusts out of him in a rush. His earlier disorientation had been something to notice distantly, something far-off like it was happening to someone else; this feels immediate, real, like all the weight of rising panic in him before has slammed home now with the force of ice spilling through his veins. He can feel his fingers tighten against the cold of the bottle in his hand; but that’s not right, that’s not supposed to be there, it’s supposed to be something else weighting a smooth curve against his palm. His heart is racing, his stomach is twisting; and across the yard from him, framed by the domesticity of an open door, Yamamoto is kissing someone Gokudera has never seen before with a smile at his mouth that doesn’t touch the shadows in his eyes.

“What the fuck,” Gokudera says, his voice shaking on emotion too perfectly balanced between rage and horror for him to give it the name of either. “What the _fuck_ is going on, Takeshi?” The woman draws back from Yamamoto and lifts her head to gaze wide-eyed at Gokudera. She has an eyepatch covering one eye but the other is soft, dark-lashed, feminine and gentle in a way Gokudera has never been, never will be, never _needs_ to be because Yamamoto--

“Sorry,” Yamamoto says, and when he turns back around his smile -- his _fake_ smile -- is back in place, pinned to his lips like he’s drawing the corners of them up instead of actually letting the happiness Gokudera has always seen in him bubble free. “Gokudera-san, why are you calling me by my first name?”

Gokudera can feel his jaw set, can feel his fingers tense. Yamamoto is watching him, turned out to face Gokudera as if he’s open, as if he’s friendly; but his smile doesn’t touch his eyes, and his shoulders are angled in front of the woman behind him, and...and he had flinched away when Gokudera touched him, before, he had pushed Gokudera’s hand away, and this isn’t--

“You’re not him,” Gokudera says, and his voice is certain on the words even as his heart races with the much-delayed rise of panic spreading out into him. “What did you do with Takeshi?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” not-Yamamoto says, still with that mask of friendliness on, as if Gokudera won’t notice that it’s a mask, as if he’s ever _needed_ a mask with Gokudera. “Maybe we should cancel our dinner plans.”

“Fuck you,” Gokudera says, and he lifts his attention up to the house in general, to the bland family life it promises, to the happy, ordinary marriage it would bring with it. His chest tightens for a moment, his stomach drops; but his jaw clenches, his teeth brace against each other, and when he speaks it’s to grate out an answer certain enough to override even his creeping sense of panic. “You’re not my partner.” He turns on his heel, pivoting to face the gate leading to the front of the house.

“Gokudera?” the stranger with Yamamoto’s face calls. “Where are you going?”

“To find him,” Gokudera says, and tosses the bottle in his hand aside. It doesn’t shatter -- it doesn’t even hit the ground before it vanishes -- but he doesn’t look back for it, doesn’t hesitate over that oddity any more than he hesitates over the flicker of his clothes shifting, of the suit jacket he’s wearing settling into the more familiar lines of his preferred Academy uniform, of his body losing the few inches of height that put him closer to level with Yamamoto’s eyes. He just moves, almost running, leaving the strange unfamiliarity of that house behind him and heading somewhere else, somewhere safer, somewhere he might be able to find the real Yamamoto.

The sky is still blue by the time Gokudera makes it to the front of the Academy. The stairs angle up in front of him, an endless procession of them stretching away towards the brilliant, cloudless color of the sky arcing overhead; Gokudera’s lungs burn just looking at the climb stretching in front of him. But Yamamoto might be inside -- in classes, or with friends, or looking at the posted missions -- and that means Gokudera has to climb.

He can feel the ache in his legs as soon as he takes a step. It’s like gravity has increased just around him, like the world is reaching up and out to cling to his legs and drag him back and down towards itself again; Gokudera has to struggle to drag himself up, to wrench his foot free of the grasp of its own weight. He manages one step, bracing his foot hard on the surface before him as he completes the motion; and another, as hard as the first, like fighting with the air itself to find the freedom to move. His lips set against each other, his jaw aches with the tension of his clenched teeth; and he keeps moving, struggling up the stairs like he’s walking through syrup slowly chilling to ice around him.

He doesn’t know how long he spends climbing. It’s impossible to look up, impossible to face the hazy glow of that sky overhead; he has to keep his head down, has to keep his gaze on his feet and his focus on the rhythm of his breathing dragging in his chest just to keep his feet moving forward against that dragging force. He would swear each step is getting slower, every breath coming harder as he climbs; it’s like he’s ascending the summit of a mountain instead of just making his way to the front of the Academy, like the air is going thin with altitude until he’s suffocating in the clear space under that brilliant sky. His heart is pounding on effort, now, more than on panic; there’s no space in his head for anything but the struggle. He can’t even remember what it is he’s trying to get to, can’t remember what his goal is; there’s just the effort, and his stubborn-set jaw driving him forward as much out of contrariness as anything else. His legs are aching, his eyes are blurring; his hair is clinging to the sweat at his forehead, his bare feet are bruising with the force with which he lands at each polished-smooth step. He’s not sure he can keep on his feet, not sure how much longer he can hold himself upright; he’s going dizzy, his vision is blurring. He thinks he might collapse, in a minute; he wonders how far he’ll fall if he loses his balance, if he topples backwards instead of forward. It’s a strange thought, faraway and distant, like it’s not really attached to him, like he’s back in that odd dissocation he felt when he first came into himself absent an sense of continuity; and then there’s a voice, “Gokudera-kun!” clear and carrying, and Gokudera’s upraised foot fails to catch a step in front of him.

He almost falls. He’s been pulling so hard against such incredible force that the absence of support leaves his whole body canting forward, leaves him stumbling in a desperate attempt to catch himself. He does fall onto his knees, landing hard with both hands against the smooth courtyard of the Academy; and from in front of him that voice again, “Gokudera-kun!” and Gokudera lifts his head to see Tsuna running towards him from the front doors of the school. “Are you alright?”

“Tsuna,” Gokudera breathes, feeling unreasonably relieved at this familiar face. He’s at the Academy, he’s wearing his own clothes; and now Tsuna’s here too as another point of familiarity to speak to Gokudera being in the right place, to support Gokudera having made it to somewhere less insane than wherever he started. He comes up onto his knees, ignoring the ache spreading out from his impact with the ground; it’s irrelevant for the moment, he’ll worry about it later. Right now he’s reaching out to clutch at Tsuna’s shoulder, as much for the reassurance of another person in front of him as for the support to help even out his balance as he gasps for air. “I’m so glad you’re here. Everything’s gone crazy, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s okay,” Tsuna says, his forehead creased with concern as he reaches out to pat Gokudera’s shoulder with awkward reassurance. “We’ll figure it out. What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Gokudera says. “I don’t know how I got here, I was in the Death Room and in the middle of a fight, or maybe about to start one? And I tried to Resonate with Yamamoto and then…” He’s not sure now, he can’t remember the details when he reaches for them. “I don’t know what happened, but I ended up _here_ , and Yamamoto was with someone else and he didn’t want me to touch him and I need to _find_ him, I don’t know where he is but I have to figure it out and get to him.”

“Okay,” Tsuna says, and there’s something in his tone that shivers discomfort down Gokudera’s spine, that prickles stress into the line of his shoulders. “Right. Um.” He clears his throat and pitches his voice into a strange, false cheer. “Well, Yamamoto’s right here, so…”

“ _What_?” Gokudera leans sideways to look around the barrier of Tsuna’s body; and there Yamamoto is, looking just like himself, lounging next to the door of the Academy in his usual jeans and worn-soft t-shirt. Gokudera can remember the feel of that fabric under his fingers, can remember the give of it crumpling to his hold as he pulled Yamamoto in against him; the memory is an almost-painful relief, it drags in the back of his throat until he’s almost sobbing his exhale. “ _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” Tsuna says in that same strange tone. “So everything’s fine, you know. Probably you should get home and get some rest, Gokudera-kun, I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning!”

Gokudera gives up gazing at Yamamoto to look up at Tsuna instead, to frown attention at the other’s too-bright tone. Tsuna is silhouetted against the brilliance of the sky; Gokudera can’t see his features clearly, can’t make out the details of his expression for the backlighting, but he can see the tremor of the other’s smile, can parse out the insincerity of his expression.

“What,” he says. “What’s wrong, why do you look like that?”

“Ah,” Tsuna says, and looks back over his shoulder, towards the front of the Academy. “It’s just that--”

“Aren’t you coming, Tsuna?” Yamamoto’s voice calls clear over the distance of the front courtyard. “We’re going to be late for class if you don’t hurry.”

“Shit,” Gokudera says, and struggles to his feet in spite of the headrush the movement brings with it. “I’ll rest later. I don’t know what happened to my shoes; do you think they’ll mind?”

“Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna says, and his voice is softer now, shaky in a way that pulls all Gokudera’s attention back down to him at once. He’s looking up at Gokudera instead of down; and now Gokudera can see the soft concern in his eyes, and the frown starting to tug at his mouth. “Where are you going?”  
“To class,” Gokudera says, lifting a hand to gesture towards the front doors. “If it’s going to start I have to--” but Tsuna is shaking his head, his expression so apologetic and frightened at once that it stops Gokudera’s words at his lips.

“You’re not…” Tsuna starts, and then stops and swallows hard. “Gokudera-kun, you’re not a student here.”

Gokudera blinks. “What?” He shakes his head, huffs a laugh. “Don’t be silly. Who’s Yamamoto going to partner with if not…” but his words die at his lips, his rhetorical question given an unwanted answer by the grimace of misery Tsuna is wearing.

“I’m sorry,” Tsuna says. “If we had known you needed a weapon to stay we would have partnered differently but...I’m sure they’ll have a weapon for you next year, and then you can come back! You’ll only be a year behind us, it’s not that bad right?”

Gokudera opens his mouth to reject this idea: to mention Reborn, Enma, the months of time he’s spent working with Yamamoto, the apartment they share, the history they...but his memories fracture as fast as he reaches for them, like a thin crust of ice giving way to the dark of freezing water beneath, because Gokudera can _remember_ , now, can remember that lonely first day of class, can remember being called into the Death Room to be told there’s no space for him at the Academy, can remember coming home from working at a convenience store to the tiny apartment that’s the most he can afford without the support of the Academy at his back. No partner, no school, no _Yamamoto_ ; alone, useless, unwanted, a failure, just like he always feared he would be, just like he always--

“Come on Tsuna,” Yamamoto calls from the doorway. “We’re going to be late!” And Gokudera’s eyes go wide, and his thoughts go still, his attention snapped back out of the shadows of his broken memory by the effect of that voice, by the _reminder_ of that voice.

“Go home, Gokudera-kun,” Tsuna is saying, urging Gokudera back towards those endless stairs. “We’ll come by to visit later, I promise, we’ll make sure you’re feeling better after class.”

“After class,” Gokudera repeats, still staring at the door to the Academy.

Tsuna nods. “Yes,” he says. “I’ll come by, and I’ll see if Yamamoto wants to come, and we’ll--”

“Stop,” Gokudera says, and he reaches to push Tsuna’s hold off his shirt, to break free of the other’s hold on him. “‘If Yamamoto wants to come,’” he repeats. “No. That’s not…” He shakes his head, shedding the fragments of illusory memories; but they _are_ illusions, he knows that now, he’s sure of it right down in the core of his being.

“No,” he says again. “Yamamoto _always_ wants to see me.” He takes a step forward, ignoring Tsuna’s attempt to catch at his sleeve to hold him back. “He’s always there, it doesn’t matter what I do to get him to leave.” He’s moving faster, almost jogging as he comes towards the doors of the Academy.

“I can’t get _rid_ of him,” he says as he draws closer, as he looks straight into the face of the boy standing by the door, of the figure watching him without any particular interest behind the idle attention he’s giving Gokudera. “You’re not him either” and he pushes past not-Yamamoto, knocking him roughly aside so he can pull the Academy door open, so he can heave the weight of it wide to let himself inside. “Where the _fuck_ is Takeshi?”

“Wait!” Tsuna calls from behind him, “Gokudera-kun!” but Gokudera doesn’t look back and doesn’t hesitate. He bolts inside, barely slipping free of the reaching hold of the figure still standing by the front door of the Academy, and keeps going, picking up speed with every smack of his bare feet against the floor of the school hallways. They’re empty around him, echoing to throw back the sound of his motion with every step he takes, and that’s familiar too, somehow, that shudders some kind of recognition down his spine; but there’s no time to think it through, no time to pause to so much as catch his breath, because his heart is racing, his blood is surging through his veins, and he can feel Yamamoto’s presence like a magnet drawing him on, urging him to greater speed with each turning he takes, forcing his exhausted body to more effort as he sprints up curving hallways and jogs up long flights of sweeping stairs. He can almost taste the feeling in the air, like the cool of the wind that comes before a downpour, like the weight of anticipation that forms just before a storm; and it carries him upward, ever higher, moving through the halls of the Academy like he’s being drawn forward on a leash, like he’s following a path laid out with perfect clarity for him on the smooth of the floors. He wonders if he’ll keep climbing forever, if the stairs before him will stretch and morph like those at the front of the school did; and it’s just as he’s thinking it that he reaches the landing, the smooth expanse of floor leading out to one of the balconies lining the outside of the school, and he sees his partner.

Yamamoto is standing at the very edge of the railing, his hands braced against the support of the stone and his back to Gokudera. He doesn’t show any sign of noticing the other’s presence, even though Gokudera thinks he can feel the beat of Yamamoto’s heart like it’s an echo of his own, thinks he can feel the rush of breath in the other’s chest like he’s borrowing oxygen with every inhale Yamamoto takes. He’s just standing there, gazing out over the city spread out like a picture far below the height of the tower; and Gokudera pauses for a moment, panting to catch his breath as his heart thunders in his chest and he takes in the satisfaction of having finally found what he was looking for.

Yamamoto looks almost perfectly ordinary. He’s not looking at Gokudera but his hair is as disheveled as it always is, catching around his head like a soft halo ruffled by the wind sweeping over the balcony. His shirt is white, one Gokudera hasn’t seen before; it looks nearly translucent under the brilliance of the sun spilling down over him, until Gokudera can almost see the tanned dark of the other’s skin under the cloth. His jeans are hanging from his hips, the back hems worn to softness by uncounted footsteps; Gokudera can just see the backs of Yamamoto’s heels, the skin pressing close against the traction of the stone underfoot. Strange, Gokudera thinks, that Yamamoto is missing his shoes as well, that they both are lacking this one piece of clothing; and then Yamamoto’s shoulders shift under his shirt, and he leans forward against the support of his hands, and starts to step up onto the edge of the balcony railing.

It takes Gokudera a moment to realize what he’s seeing. It’s impossible for his mind to make sense of; for the first span of time all he can notice are the technical details, the flex of Yamamoto’s wrist, the angle of his calf, the way his weight rocks forward onto the ball of his foot. The way he unfolds as he stands, the whole length of his body lifting up into silhouette against the brilliant color of the blue-saturated sky. The way his hair looks catching the light into shadow, the way the wind whips to pin his shirt close against his side; and then Gokudera actually makes sense of his vision, and he tries to move so fast he stumbles and nearly falls.

“ _Takeshi_ ,” he shouts, his voice dragging over so much panic it comes out rough and strangled as he tries to pull himself back to his feet to move forward. “Takeshi, _get down!_ ” Gokudera’s stumbling forward, his heart racing on fright and horror at once as he moves; but Yamamoto isn’t moving, isn’t tipping forward as Gokudera’s panic is afraid he will. He’s just standing there, perfectly still, his head tilted up towards the color spanning the world overhead, like he doesn’t even realize where he is or what he’s standing on. Gokudera throws himself forward over the distance between them, reaching out well before he can actually cross the gap; and his hand hits a wall, sliding as if over glass he can’t see to stop him a few scant inches from Yamamoto. He slams into it bodily, letting his weight shove hard in some hope of breaking through; but it doesn’t so much as shift, it might as well be brick for how much it gives way. “ _Takeshi!_ ”

“I wanted to play baseball,” Yamamoto says dreamily, his head still tilted up to look at the sky overhead. Gokudera’s not sure if he hears the sound of Gokudera’s shouting, not sure if he’s noticing the desperate fists Gokudera is beating against the unseen barrier between them; he might be talking to Gokudera, he might be talking to himself, it’s impossible to tell. “When I was a kid. I loved baseball.”

“ _Get down_ ,” Gokudera demands. “Takeshi, get _off the railing_.”

“I was pretty good too,” Yamamoto says. He lifts a hand from his side, holds his fingers up to the glow of the sky overhead so the light shines through the angle of his fingers in stripes. “Just a kid but people talked about going to Koshien, when I was older. They said I could be a pro.”

Gokudera frowns. He can’t make any sense of what Yamamoto is saying. Maybe he _is_ just talking to himself, maybe the wall between them is blocking sound as well as touch. But Gokudera can hear _Yamamoto_ just fine; is Yamamoto just ignoring him? “Cool. Great. You can tell me all about it when you _get down_.”

“I was going to go to a school for it,” Yamamoto continues. “I got a scholarship. It took me months of studying to pass the exam but I did.” He laughs, some faint gesture towards his usual burbling delight. “Tsuna helped me with that. Dunno how much it helped, but it was nice to have the company.” He takes a deep breath, like he’s filling his lungs with the bright clarity of the air; and his hand drops to his side at once, all the strength in it giving way in a single motion.

“I transformed the first time the night after the exam.” His voice is heavy, now, flat like Gokudera’s never heard it; it’s like he’s reading from some dry textbook more than telling the story of his own life, like someone else has stolen Yamamoto’s voice without keeping any of the vibrant life that makes it so warm and alive. “Just a partial transformation, it’s not like I hurt anyone. But weapons have to come to the DWMA, to keep them from hurting anyone on accident.” Yamamoto takes a breath; Gokudera can feel the pressure of it like it’s his own lungs filling with air instead of Yamamoto’s. “So much for my scholarship.”

Gokudera huffs an exhale to clear his lungs of the force of that air he didn’t inhale. “Isn’t that good?” he demands. “It took me _years_ to be accepted to the Academy, I would have killed to be a weapon and come in without even trying. Being a weapon is _everything_ I’ve ever wanted.”

“It’s not what I wanted.” Yamamoto hasn’t turned around, still; but at least Gokudera knows, now, that he’s listening, or at least so closely following Gokudera’s line of thought that he might as well be. “I wanted to play baseball. That’s all.” He tips his head back, angling his chin up until he’s looking straight up at the sky overhead. It makes his body into one long line, lean and elegant against the glow of blue behind him; he looks beautiful, like this, all clean lines and dark hair and pale shirt, and he looks _fragile_ , more fragile that he’s ever looked before, like he might give way to a breath, like an errant gust of wind could knock him right off that barefoot balance he has at the balcony railing. “I’m no good at anything else.”

The words knock the wind out of Gokudera. It’s like he’s hearing his own thoughts at Yamamoto’s lips, like that odd echo effect they sometimes get from Resonance is bleeding out into this moment, this time, infecting Yamamoto with all Gokudera’s insecurities and insufficiencies; except. Except they’re not just Gokudera’s insecurities. Maybe they never were. Yamamoto’s never talked about his past, not once, he’s been as absolutely closed-mouth on the subject as Gokudera has been about the weight of his own history. Gokudera wants to shove this away, wants to reject it as just another one of the hallucinatory Yamamotos that aren’t his, that are distant and cold and _wrong_ ; but Yamamoto’s not rejecting _Gokudera_ , this time, there’s no sure way for Gokudera to push this aside as a production of his own fears, not when he never considered this as a possibility at all. And besides, didn’t he follow that ache in his chest, didn’t he climb those endless stairs and countless turnings to find his way to Yamamoto here? He could hardly have found his way to someone else, could hardly mistake that echo of Resonance for anything else; and that means there’s only one conclusion left for him to come to, however impossible it may seem.

Gokudera takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Takeshi,” he says, as calmly as he can. He uncurls his fingers from the fist he’s been making at the wall, lays his palm flat against the invisible surface instead. “Hey. Are you listening?” There’s no sign of Yamamoto hearing him, no word and no movement, but Gokudera keeps talking anyway, for lack of any better options at the moment. “You’re not useless. You’re a good weapon, really you are.” He manages a smile, the expression shaky but sincere even though his heart is still racing, even though all he can see is that inch of space between Yamamoto’s feet and the edge of the railing. “Probably a better weapon than I deserve to have as a partner. But I’m the one who got you, and I’m…” He has to swallow, has to take a breath before he can speak. “I’m glad you’re my partner. I’m glad you came to the Academy and I’m glad I met you.” He presses hard against the wall, flattening his palm to the surface like maybe it’ll give way, now, like maybe it will react to his body heat and melt like ice to let him through to where Yamamoto is still standing at the edge of that railing.

“I need you here,” Gokudera says, and his face is hot but there’s no space for embarrassment, there’s no time for silence when he doesn’t know how many words he’ll get, when he doesn’t know how much time he has to persuade Yamamoto to turn around, to come back, to let him in. “Just like you are. I need you, Takeshi.” He takes a breath and fills his lungs with all the sincerity he can muster. “Takeshi, _let me in_.”

Yamamoto’s foot shifts against the railing. For a brief, heart-stopping moment Gokudera is sure he’s going to step forward, is sure he’s going to see Yamamoto fall into that endless space below them without any way to reach him, without any way to stop him; but then he turns, graceful as a dancer, his motion elegant as he pivots to look back at Gokudera behind him. His lashes shift, dipping dark over gold eyes; and Gokudera recognizes him, Gokudera knows him, he would know the real Yamamoto anywhere at all. Yamamoto’s head tips, his lips part; and then he smiles, that same soft one he gave Gokudera when they were separated in the basement below the school, and Gokudera would swear he can feel his heart skip a beat.

“Oh,” Yamamoto says, as if he’s only just seeing Gokudera there. “Hayato” and Gokudera is stumbling forward, his hands coming out without thinking; the wall is gone instantly, like it never even existed, the space between them clearing as quickly as that. Gokudera is ready to close his hand to hold at Yamamoto’s ankle, hip, foot, whatever of him he can reach to pull the other back to safety; but Yamamoto is stepping down with the same offhand, athletic grace he brings to everything, and reaching out as fast as Gokudera stretches out for him. Their hands catch, their fingers tangle; and everything goes to white, the school and the city and the sky, until even the blue is swallowed up by the light.

 

The sky is a brilliant blue overhead.

Gokudera blinks hard. He feel dizzy, lost, like he’s borrowed someone else’s body and can’t remember how he got here; there’s too much input, too much noise and motion and color all at once. But the sky is clear, so brilliant it’s all but glowing over them; and then there’s a hand closing at his wrist, and a voice, “ _Hayato_ ” resonant at his side, and Gokudera blinks, and everything comes back at once.

There’s chaos around him. He’s on his knees against sand so hot he can feel it burning through his jeans; before him, around the scarlet color of the torii, there’s movement, shouts from Ryohei so consistent they seem unending and a blur of silent motion from what can only be Hibari. A few feet away there’s color spilling over the sand, crimson staining the pale as dark as the torii over them, as bright as the hair of the boy cradling another in his lap, his head ducked down and hand pressing close against a bloodstained tear across the other’s jacket. There’s something wrong with his leg -- the angle he’s holding it, maybe, or the awkward way he’s leaning away to avoid putting pressure on it -- but Gokudera is still relieved to see Irie alive, although it’s hard to remember why, exactly. Byakuran’s eyes are open, too, his mouth curving on the edge of a smile in spite of the wound Irie is so desperately pressing against; and then Gokudera processes the sound of that voice next to him, and turns his head in a rush.

Yamamoto’s holding onto his wrist, his fingers warm and close against Gokudera’s skin. His eyes look tired, his breathing is coming rough in his chest; but his smile is brilliant, brighter even than the sky overhead.

“Hayato,” he breathes, and his voice is soft but Gokudera can hear it clearly even over Ryohei’s shouting and the clang of a metal blade skidding off armored gauntlets. “You’re okay.”

Gokudera blinks, clears his throat. “ _You’re_ okay,” he says, with so much relief on the words they sound almost angry, like he’s more frustrated with Yamamoto than otherwise. He twists his hand in Yamamoto’s hold and closes his fingers hard around the other’s. He’s holding too tight, he’s sure he is, but he doesn’t loosen his hold and Yamamoto doesn’t ask him to. “What _was_ that?”

“The Madness,” Yamamoto says, and that’s not an answer, not really, not to what Gokudera was asking; but it’s enough, for now, because they have bigger things to worry about.

He squeezes against Yamamoto’s wrist, just for a moment, enough to underscore the frown of attention he gives the other. “You alright?”

Yamamoto ducks his head forward, huffs a breath. His mouth curves on the soft beginnings of a smile. “Yeah.”

“Good,” Gokudera says, and he pushes to his feet, ignoring the way his legs shake and the way the world spins. “Let’s go, then. Our friends need our help.”

Yamamoto’s smile breaks wider, just for a moment, spreading across his whole face like sunlight; and then he tips his head up, and says “Okay” just as his expression begins to give way to the blue light of transformation.

Gokudera reaches out as quickly as Yamamoto transforms. There’s no hesitation this time, no uncertainty about what he’s doing; whatever effect the Madness had on them, it’s gone now, as irrelevant as all the other distractions of sound and movement and danger. Gokudera’s just here, in this moment, with his weapon partner shifting and settling into his grip; and this time there’s no grating, no friction, no sudden loss of the world around them. There’s just them, Hayato and Takeshi blending into a single entity without any hesitation at all, so their human body is stepping forward as quickly as their weapon self curves into the angle of a blade, as quickly as bracing hands close around the hilt to raise it up over their shoulder. They’re moving faster forward, kicking off hard against the give of the sand under them to get enough traction to fling themselves forward into the middle of the ongoing combat; and when they swing forward it’s with their selves as much as with their edge, reaching out to offer the support of their whole existence to the fight as well as the simple cut of a perfectly sharp blade.

There’s a moment of hesitation, a breath of time to feel the inevitable dissolution forming itself; and then everything merges into a sudden surge of light so bright they have to close their eyes against the blinding force of it. But they don’t, or at least one of them doesn’t; because there’s two, three, a whole handful of other forms, now, they’re spilling over into each other at all the edges where they touch. It’s not as complete as their initial blending -- Hayato can still outline the edges of their shared form, Takeshi can still remember the shape of their original names -- but there’s enthusiasm from someone else, surging and flaring like the rays of the sun in the sky to lance out and bleed their breathing the faster with it, there’s the tight-wound focus of their neighbors, the tension of a desperate fist and the determination of a fighter who’s never wanted anything but peace. There’s a moment of resistance, a heartbeat of hesitation; and then another, a fourth, far-off and cool with the distance but there all the same, a foundation like the bottom of the sea floor to ground themselves against. They take a breath, feeling dizzy, feeling undone, overborne by more sensations than any pair of minds were ever meant to bear: information, sensation, a thousand thoughts all at once, all spilling one over the other into a cacophony until it’s impossible to distinguish them, until there’s nothing but the inundation. It’s impossible to focus, impossible to make sense of; and then, above everything else, _louder_ than everything else: _END THIS_ , desperate and anxious and vicious with certainty. It’s panic made into strength, fear hammered down into steel; determination centered against that unshakeable foundation, brought alive by energy and tempered into elegance and everything, all of them, every part of them swept together into a single, unified goal.

Fingers tighten, an arm swings -- it might be theirs, it might be someone else’s, the fit of the glove is familiar but the movement is novel -- and there’s a rush of light, orange and gold and red to wash out the blue of the sky overhead, to cast the shadow of the onrushing blade into clear relief. Black meets gold, sparks cascade out into a shower to crackle cool against the sand around them; for a moment everything hangs in the balance, victory hovering against the edge of a blade. And then, in a surge, all of them rushing together: _more_ and _death_ and _kill_ and _win_ and _peace_ all together, all bleeding one into the other like a waterfall, blending and merging to wipe away the last of the boundaries, to pull them all into a single surge of motion, powerful and murderous and determined and desperate. There’s the sound of metal creaking, the hiss of heat creeping into the edges of a blade; and then a _crack_ , like glass shattering but multiplied a hundredfold, and the edge of the scythe they’re pressing against gives way into a thousand fragments of shadow at once, evaporating to be consumed by that glow of light filling the whole of the room around them. The light spreads, reaches, tears through shadowed fabric and wipes away the dark of the weapon, fills every corner of the room and aches in every watering eye; and then it calms, and ebbs, receding like the tide sweeping back out to sea. It leaves the Death Room: blue sky, pale sand, red torii; and them, all of them, Byakuran and Irie and Ryohei and Kyoko and Hibari and Kusakabe and Enma and Tsuna and Gokudera and Yamamoto, all arrayed in the space in their human forms and in their individual human minds. There’s a ripple of air through the room, like a sigh of some satisfied god settling in for a long rest; and then silence, with nothing but the sound of their breathing to fill the emptiness around them.


	25. Petrichor

Gokudera is out on the balcony when Yamamoto finds him.

He had been in the infirmary, first. That’s where they all went, after the long, breathless waiting in the Death Room for some retaliatory strike that never came; but finally Byakuran had cleared his throat, and Irie had hissed an exhale of repressed pain, and it became clear that tending to their injuries was going to be more important than staying on guard for a potential attack that might not come at all. Ryohei had helped carry Byakuran, and Yamamoto had helped make up for Irie’s broken leg; and by the time they made it to the infirmary Shamal was already waiting for them, flushed with intoxication and irritation that only one of them had the good grace to be a woman and with Reborn lurking in the shadows of the room to offer an actual smile to all of them and a hand at Tsuna’s shoulder by way of praise. Gokudera hadn’t even known the Death Weapon _could_ smile, beyond the sardonic smirks he gives out along with the critique he offers with such ease; but apparently overthrowing an evil that Reborn has been kept in thrall to for years deserves an unusual amount of gratitude and more immediate support than Gokudera is used to receiving. Byakuran is whisked away behind a white curtain, and Irie settled into the adjourning bed; and then Shamal had decreed that all the rest of them but Kyoko could get out, if they didn’t have ‘more than scratches that don’t even need a band-aid.’ Gokudera would like to protest this -- he’s shaky on his feet and dizzy in a way that seems to go down to the very marrow of his bones, and at least Enma is bleeding from several cuts across his arms and forehead -- but there’s no time to protest, when Shamal is shuffling them all out as rapidly as he can give them a cursory examination, and Gokudera finds himself ejected into the hallway while Yamamoto is still waiting his turn for Shamal’s perfunctory once-over.

Gokudera can’t stand still long enough to wait for his partner. His vision is still hazy, his steps are still unsteady; but he feels electrified, like his skin is throwing off sparks with every beat of his heart, and there’s no way he can manage to hold still with his whole body shaking with the desire to move, to act, to _do_ something with all the energy still in him even though there’s nothing left to do, no enemy to fight and no evil to overthrow. So he walks, down the hallway before he has a goal and then around a corner as his endpoint forms itself in his awareness, carefully down a flight of stairs and across the span of a hallway and out past the tall-standing columns, onto the smooth flat of a balcony that skips his heart faster just to see it. But the sky’s overcast, now, cooling to grey instead of that blinding blue it was the last time he saw this, and there’s no wall before him, even when he reaches out to wave a hand through open air as if he’s testing his own awareness of reality. There’s just the smooth curve of the balcony, and the view of the city below, and the flat edge of the railing, when Gokudera steps in close enough to lean against it as a means to steady his dizzy thoughts.

He doesn’t know how long it takes Yamamoto to find him. He’s not paying attention to the passage of time, not counting out seconds by the beat of his heart; he’s just looking at the city below, feeling his chest shift over each inhale and thinking about nothing at all for a span of blessed peace. He’s waiting, he thinks, or would if he put any thought into it at all; and then there’s the scuff of a footstep from behind him, and he realizes all at once what he was waiting for, _who_ he was waiting for, why his unthinking steps led him here and why he’s not surprised to have company drawing up alongside him.

Yamamoto braces both hands against the railing alongside Gokudera and leans in against the support of his locked-out elbows. He doesn’t say anything at all; Gokudera thinks if he didn’t speak they would stay there in silence for minutes, for an hour, maybe for days, depending on how stubborn they both feel. But Gokudera has words to offer, once his slow-churning thoughts form them to clarity in his mind, and he gives them voice as soon as he has them, speaking in a neutral, flat tone stripped as bare of irritation as he can manage.

“Did you think about jumping, when you found out?”

Yamamoto doesn’t ask what Gokudera’s talking about. He doesn’t even tip his head to blink an imitation of surprise at the other. He just stays where he is, leaning hard against the weight of his hands at the railing, his gaze fixed out on the city in front of him.

“Yeah.” His voice is even, calmer than Gokudera can remember ever hearing it before; when Gokudera looks at him sideways his expression is relaxed too, absent any of his usual easy cheer. It’s strange to remember that there was a time when Gokudera wanted nothing more than for Yamamoto to look like this all the time, to act grown-up in whatever way Gokudera defined the word. Now it just seems strange, almost like those eerie not-Yamamotos Gokudera saw in the Madness-borne hallucination the Kishin brought with it; except that this isn’t a mask of Yamamoto, this is the reality, a layer of steady sincerity that Gokudera just never made it far enough to get to, before. Yamamoto’s lips tug onto a smile that doesn’t reach the dark focus in his eyes. “I made it up onto the school roof, once.” He ducks his head to look at his hands, to watch the fit of his fingers as he clasps them together. “Tsuna’s the one who stopped me.”

Gokudera’s spine prickles, as if with panic too far-off and distant to properly form itself into awareness of the reaction. It’s like remembered terror, retroactive fear gone strange and hazy with its own futility. “Jesus.”

Yamamoto’s smile pulls wider. “Yeah.” He lifts his head and sighs a breath. “He said I had other things to live for, or that I would find them if I didn’t.” His eyes soften, his expression eases towards sincerity. “He’s a lot smarter than people give him credit for.”

Gokudera doesn’t know what to say. There’s too much here, too much he hasn’t had time to reconcile in his own mind. He’s spent months thinking of Yamamoto as an idiot, a sweet, good-natured baseball fan too easily satisfied with the world to feel any fraction of the strain Gokudera has bearing down on him every time he opens his eyes in the morning. It’s startling to realize how wrong he was, to realize how entirely he ignored this possibility even as it was right in front of him; how completely he failed to see this aspect of Yamamoto even in the shared identity they take on during Soul Resonance. He doesn’t like the experience. It feels too much like turning that title of _idiot_ back around on himself.

“Guess so,” Gokudera says, finally, feeling like the words are inadequate but not sure what else to say. Yamamoto’s smile pulls wider at his mouth but he doesn’t look up from his consideration of the city below them, doesn’t turn his head to face Gokudera’s sideways attention. Gokudera can’t stand to look down -- all he can see is the distance, now, the fall so steep it swims his vision into vertigo -- so he turns in a rush, pushing against the railing before him to pivot around so he can lean against it and cross his arms over his chest instead. He clears his throat and struggles for a different conversational topic. “Do you think they’re going to close down the Academy now, without a Headmaster?”

“Mm,” Yamamoto hums consideration without any visible discomfort at this abrupt shift of subject. “Maybe. Reborn was saying he knew someone he could call in to take over, though, to keep things running. An old partner of his. Shamal was really excited to hear about the idea.”

“Huh,” Gokudera says, only half-listening to this suggestion; and then, as the implication hits him: “ _What_?” Yamamoto looks up from his consideration of the city, blinking startled attention at the shrill edge on Gokudera’s voice. “Did he give a name?”

Yamamoto’s mouth draws down on a frown of attention, his forehead creases. “I think so,” he allows. “I don’t know if I--”

“Bianchi?” Gokudera suggests.

Yamamoto’s expression clears at once. “Bianchi! That was it. How did you know?”

Gokudera groans far in the back of his throat and tips his head up towards the sky. “Because she’s my sister.”

“Really?” Yamamoto says, sounding something like his usual cheerful self again. “That’s awesome!”

Gokudera would like to protest this. It’s _not_ awesome; he hardly wants to have to brace himself for his sister’s particular variety of doting affection every time he goes in to report the results of a completed mission. But Yamamoto is smiling when Gokudera looks over to scowl at him, his whole expression bright and open with unfettered happiness, and Gokudera can feel his intentions dissolve under the unassailable force of the other’s good cheer like dry-cracked earth giving way to a downpour.

“Sure,” he says instead. “If you say so.” Yamamoto smiles easy warmth and Gokudera huffs and looks back up towards the sky. There are clouds forming in the space above them, the weight of them dimming the too-bright glow of the sun to something softer, smoother, more gentle and easier to bear. Gokudera stares at them for a moment, feels the wind that comes before a storm ruffling against his hair; and then he speaks, still with his gaze fixed on the clouds collecting overhead.

“You’re okay now, right?”

There’s a pause before Yamamoto responds, hesitation enough to pull Gokudera’s gaze down to the other standing next to him. Yamamoto is watching Gokudera now instead of the city, his eyes soft and mouth curving against that gentle smile. They stare at each other for a moment, Gokudera’s frowning attention meeting Yamamoto’s undisguised affection; and then Yamamoto ducks his head, and huffs a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says. “For now.”

Gokudera clears his throat. “You had better tell me if that changes.”

Yamamoto nods agreement. “Okay.”

“Good,” Gokudera says, and looks away again, towards the shadows of the Academy in front of him. It’s hard to find the words in his mind, harder still to give them voice; he has to try twice before he manages it, and even then they come out rough and grating in his throat, like the effort has left marks on the sound at his lips. “I’ll be the one to stop you next time if you need it.”

Yamamoto lets out a huff of air. Gokudera imagines he can feel the warmth of it against his skin. “Hayato.”

“I mean,” Gokudera starts, and his eyes are burning and his throat is tightening but he fights to get the words out anyway, to force them past his lips and into clarity for Yamamoto to hear. “I only just got used to working with you, you know, I don’t want to have to go and find another weapon partner after all that effort.”

“Hayato.”

“Plus I’d probably have to move in with them too,” Gokudera goes on, feeling a little frantic and sounding more so. “Your milk thing is weird but I guess it could be a lot worse and I’d really rather not take my chances.”

“Hayato.”

“And I’d have to start all over again collecting souls,” Gokudera continues. “It would be such a waste of--”

“ _Hayato_ ” and there’s a hand at Gokudera’s wrist, fingers closing to grip close against his skin, and when Gokudera lifts his head to look up Yamamoto is leaning in towards him, ducking his head over the gap of distance between them to press his mouth to Gokudera’s. Gokudera’s eyes shut of their own accord, his instincts too immediately responsive to the weight of Yamamoto’s mouth at his, and for a span of long seconds his thoughts clear, the strain climbing his spine eases into appreciation as soft and simple as if he’s borrowing it from Yamamoto directly. They linger in the heat of it, Yamamoto’s lips pressing close to Gokudera’s and Gokudera feeling the racing panic of his heartrate slow and calm to the contact; and then Yamamoto draws back, just by a few inches, and sighs an exhale against Gokudera’s mouth.

“Hayato,” he says again. He’s so close Gokudera can see the shift of his lashes when he blinks, can almost feel the motion of his mouth when he smiles. “I love you too.”

Gokudera clears his throat. “Idiot,” he says, and reaches out to grab at Yamamoto’s shirt to punctuate, to curl his fingers into a fist as if he intends to shake the other into rationality even though he does nothing of the sort. “What do you mean _too_ , I never said anything.”

“Mm.” Yamamoto makes a noise that would sound deceptively close to capitulation, if one wasn’t listening to the faint suggestion of resistance underneath it, the allowance that Gokudera can be wrong all he wants but that’s not going to change Yamamoto’s perspective. “Okay.”

“Shut up,” Gokudera tells him, and he does shake Yamamoto then, just a little, just to underscore his point. “You have to wait until I _tell_ you before you answer.” He takes a breath and lets it go as slowly as he can, feeling his heart catch itself back into the start of adrenaline, of excitement spiking so high that he has to talk quickly, before he loses his voice to the climb of strain in his chest. “I love you, Takeshi.”

Yamamoto’s sigh is warm against Gokudera’s mouth. “Yeah,” he says. “I know you do.”

“Good,” Gokudera says. “Kiss me, before it starts raining.”

“Mm,” Yamamoto laughs, his hand coming up to settle at Gokudera’s hip, his fingers spreading to pin the weight of the other’s shirt in against his side. “I don’t mind the rain.”

“I don’t care,” Gokudera tells him. “Kiss me anyway.” Yamamoto huffs a laugh against his mouth, and ducks his head in closer, and Gokudera shuts his eyes and lets Yamamoto’s lips catch his just as the first raindrops fall against the desert-dry city below.


End file.
